04 Jan 2010

Margareta Lekic and Andi Ant at Factory-Art, Berlin

Factory-Art gallery presents the double personal of Croatian artist Margareta Lekic and the Slovene artist Andi Ant.

Margareta Lekic

The works of the artist Margareta Lekic are a research into the articulation of the relation between man and woman.
Working with conventions of behavior she constructs objects that serve to generate manifestations of individual responses to experiential mediated devices. 'Wet the finger' is soft sponge that gives a nice comfortable feeling to a finger but the result is a laughing sound which gives the viewer a note of shame. The work 'Nipple vibrator' is a tool for pleasure made out of a kid's toy.
For the sake of analyzing conduct and communication by the construction of temporary, simple found units, the artist mainly uses basic round and cylinder elements, as in the video 'Circle', which is about creation and destruction showed in a basic, silent and very slow way.
In the work 'Stick', conceived as an intervention on the found cardboard cylinder, the artist glued an eatable pretzel (which also has a cylinder shape) creating one big stick. It deals with the idea of an existent phallus structure with the intention of the physical sense (eatable-fellatio).
All the works actively involve the viewer. There is a big pointer towards the sexual aspect of the relation between both genders, but she has well looked at other aspects: the symbolic space of social interaction, as aesthetic space and the designed space of the work of art.
The artist will be present at the opening.

Andi Ant

The artist Andi Ant works principally against the conventions. For this reason it is his intention to hide his identity: no pictures, no interviews nor physical contact.
In this way he obtains to break the rule concerning that we see first a finished artwork and afterwards understand it. He usually sends only a message where it is described how to realize his artwork. Therefore he has turned the action up side down and he asks us to understand the artwork before we see it.
In this exhibition we can see 'Uniforms' Catholic clergyman, 2008 where big black silicon didlos are wearing the blalck&white catholic clergyman and 'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité', 2008.
With the project 'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité', 2008 Andi Ant wants to ironize the slogan symbol of the French revolution. He underlines that not much has really changed from that time.
This time the work is inside a rectangular metal cage containing 4 elements, each on the four corners. The 'elements' are 4 quails without feathers, hairs and heads. These animals can be seen as people. Not considered particularly courageous, but as essentially preys they are like consumers. The absence of the head makes the situation more surreal. It is the symbol of the uncertainty in which we humans are living.
Andi Ant lives between Chennai_India and Capadoccia_Turkey and he will not be present at the opening.