Text: Dalibor Prančević
Exhibition set-up: Ivan Bura
The possibilities of the hereditary very frequently originate the initiative impuls of the artistic activity of Ivan Bura. The heritage can be of various kinds: spatial, family, cultural, etc. Taking all these references into consideration the instalation 'Sailors' comes into existence enabling the artist to narrate the story of his family tradition from its male members ponit of view by projecting the process of drawing to the canvas which is directly immerged under the sea surface, and, on the contrary, by displying the photography of the sunk ship in the Venetian harbour on which the artist's grandfather used to sail, on the shore. The sea is regarded as a well of the materialistic support as well as the lifestyle of the generations of his family, therefore it springs up as the protagonist of his creative expression.
Furthermore, the town of Šibenik is also marked out by the artist's activity. The act of the renaissance portraitying together with the probable George Matthew Dalmatian's self-portrait in the public space, that is, on the apse of the Cathedral in Šibenik, is resumed by the author who uses the medium available to almost everyone - the photography. Denoting the physiognomies of the people currently living in Šibenik, the artist is offering them the opportunity to put the newly made portraits above the heads of their randomly chosen predecessors. In this very work memory preservation is emphasised by discarding the polaroids into the containers, thus creating an exigent association with the 'preservative' - protracing the perishableness of a substance that cannot possibly remain 'fresh'. (...)
Dalibor Prančević
Ivan Bura was born in Split on July 22, 1976. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, the Sculpture Departement, Florence, Italy in 2000. During his studies he reserches the photography and video media and provides assistance to the Italian photographer Maurizio Berlincioni. He participates as an art assistant in the movie 'Tosca' by benoit Jacquot in Koln in 2001. He is also an active participant of the sub-artistic project created by Ivo Deković since its very beginning in 1997.
