Professional paper

Spiral Journey through Spiral Dancing

Ivica Župan ; independent researcher, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

Demur’s project Spiral Journey demonstrated convincingly and clearly the durability and vitality of his performance concept which, on this occasion, was transformed into a poetic perception of a space as a field in which a work of art is created and which absorbs the artist’s entangled psychological moods. As such, the project exemplified the understanding of a painting as a map recording the happenings in a specific space which are heightened by a large number of coincidences, instant decisions and improvisations which occur during the painting process.
Spiral Journey was not a site-specific project – neither the artist nor the curators had the ambition to realize and harness the potential of the interior of this historical building for the benefit of the project. As such, Spiral Journey did not depend on the spatial setting and other features of the Pavilion of the Arts whereas an authentic site-specific project would have required the artist to respond to the nature of the historical interior in a finely tuned and experienced way and to recognize the inspiration as well as the obstructions which lie in such a space, in order to verify that this was an ideal site for the visual concept he had set out to create. In contrast to this, Demur decided to use the Pavilion of the Arts only as an exhibition space for six spirals which, notwithstanding, proved to correspond to it through the fact that to a certain degree they do reflect the qualities and constraints of this space which gives the spirals the air of religious and monumental wall installations while they, in turn, transform the Pavilion of the Arts into a solemn and somewhat mystic interior. However, it is obvious that the giant spirals first and foremost affirmed themselves confidently without being fascinated by the glorious past of the historic building which housed them

Keywords

spiral; Spiral Journey; spiral dancing; site-specific; Pollock-style action painting; Yves Klein; anthropometries; Sistine Chapel; sculptural performance; Pavilion of the Arts

Hrčak ID:

130935

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/130935

Publication date:

19.12.2014.

Article data in other languages: croatian

Visits: 2.325 *