Janko Ivčić:!!

To achieve communication necessarily means to use a certain sign system, such as pictorial or linguistic, and each sign used is a dualistic concept consisting of two interdependent parts. The Swiss linguist Saussure calls a physical object or concept a "signifier" that does not necessarily have to be in a close associative relationship with a certain "signified", i.e. mental concept, because every concept and association to which ... Read More

To achieve communication necessarily means to use a certain sign system, such as pictorial or linguistic, and each sign used is a dualistic concept consisting of two interdependent parts. The Swiss linguist Saussure calls a physical object or concept a "signifier" that does not necessarily have to be in a close associative relationship with a certain "signified", i.e. mental concept, because every concept and association to which it refers is conditioned by culture or individual experience. In the system of artistic production, there is a necessity to represent the work of art using a system of linguistic signs: speech or writing. Thus, the role of this text is to clarify the artistic concept and the author's works exhibited as part of the exhibition, and the textuality will be annulled at the opening of the exhibition, while enclosing the concept of the cycle in a self-referential system that functions within the entire gallery space/art product.

Janko Ivčić's works continue on previous artistic achievements and represent the result of a complex artistic-research process of questioning the relationship between text, photography and image. Out of aversion to direct depictions of reality and language as the basic system of transmitting meaning, the author tries to reduce the associativity of the image by removing recognizable shapes, but also the explanation of the work to such an extent that he abolishes the legibility of the names of the paintings. In this way, he shifts the point of reference for understanding the artistic work exclusively to the visual-intuitive level from the linguistic system. The visual art in the works takes precedence over the textual: the author covers his own textual sketches thanks to blurring, erasing, scraping and other strategies, thus canceling the semantic and leaving only structural and formalistic indications of text and words. While one part of the works is dedicated to the very process of abolishing the meaning of the text and questioning the potential of the textual form in the artistic sense, the other is dedicated to the concrete possibility of using the structure of letters and text as a means of painting. In these works, the author pays special attention to the structural features of the letters that form the composition of the work, while the painted words indicate different coloristic values and visual elements of the objects they signify. By randomly choosing painted concepts, sometimes inserting fragments of objects that the painted words indicate, the works of Janko Ivčić become more playful, which is also evident in the use of expressive colorism. In this cycle, the artist presents paintings that abolish the textual through art and in which these two media are intertwined with the same semantic results, thus hinting at their functional equality.

In Magritte's words: "Sometimes the name of an object serves instead of an image. A word can take the place of an object in reality. A picture can take the place of a word in a sentence." (Foucault, 1983:38).

Sara Mikelić

BIOGRAPHY

Janko Ivčić was born in 1989 in Zagreb. He graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 2013 in the class of Professor Duje Jurić. He has exhibited at several group and three solo exhibitions. He is a member of the Croatian Society of Fine Artists. He lives and works in Zagreb. Participation in the university student project of staging W. A. Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. The project was awarded the Rector's Award on July 2, 2010. He was awarded the Rector's Award. In addition to the Rector's Award, he is the winner of the Award for Croatian Contemporary Art T-HT@msu.hr; Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, 2015. Of the group exhibitions, he has exhibited at the 32. Youth Salon; HDLU House, Zagreb, 2014, exhibition Passion Heritage; Kristofor Stanković Gallery, Zagreb, 2013, and the exhibition Venientes III – 'Those Who Come' ; lobby of K.d. Vatroslav Lisinski, Zagreb, 2012. From solo exhibitions, we will single out: Exhibition Title; SC Gallery, Zagreb, 2014, Toys in Sacral Attire; Voltino Library, Zagreb, 2014 and Oltar; Greta Gallery, Zagreb, 2013. In addition to exhibitions, Janko Ivčić participated in the art colony and exhibition of art works in the Carmel of St. Elijah on Buško Lake, in 2010. Since his teaching experience, Janko has been working as a professor of drawing and painting at the College of Art Education, Creativity and Design – Studio Tanay since 2015.

Contact: janko.ivcic@gmail.com