„The exhibition of the graphic map Kaleidoscope is a transposition of the space-specific installation presented in 2017 at the Art Pavilion in Zagreb. In both versions of the project, media artist Ksenija Turčić interprets the collision of the space of our environment with the most often unconscious subjective experiences which our cognitive apparatus and our consciousness form in the context of spiritual categories symptomatic of our culture. Ksenija Turčić starts from the facts. The public spaces in cities determined by the history of architecture and city planning are product of the intellect of their creators, formed by the spirit of the time, manifested in the conception and strategy of urbanism, and the style of construction. Taking the Art Pavilion in Zagreb as a starting point as well as the exhibition space, the artist executed fourteen video works representing the surroundings, architecture and horticulture, and exterior architectural details of the pavilion itself. All of this was filmed at different times of day throughout the four seasons. These space-time notes selected at the artist's discretion were presented at the exhibition in the format of a space-specific installation and projected inside the pavilion so that the projections of the motifs coincide with their positions in the space outside. The projections suggested a sort of windows through which the projected motifs could be seen. The whole, composed of all segments of the pavilion’s interior, like a kaleidoscope triggered by the movement of the observers through the pavilion, represented a composite of the outdoor space as recorded by the artist for the audience to experience. Attention and perception are focused on the content that we do not normally notice when passing by or around the pavilion…
The current ambition of the artist is to present this complex space-time structure in two dimensions of a static image, without the dimension of space and time, since a static image in relation to the perception of video projection is practically an instantaneous experience. Since the fourteen motifs of the graphic map are based on frames from fourteen videos, the artist replaced the time dimension of the video by layering the composition plans. The overlapping of techniques and visual material is characteristic of the graphic medium, which compensated for the reduction of the time component of the original work to a fixed moment of a two-dimensional static image. The basic visual material are video frames which for printing purposes serve as photographs, so they are adequately printed in offset. Paraphrasing the kaleidoscopic layering of the representation of reality, a coloured layer in the local colour of the selected details was printed on them by screen printing. By pairing these graphic techniques, the artist opened the composition within the space of the image, but also in the perception of the observer, because graphics differs technologically and artistically from what should be a documentary objective image of reality. Turčić also emphasises this impression with distorted edges that break the clear and ingrained rectangular format of the technologically mediated image of reality to which we conventionally attribute the feature of objectivity. Finally, moving through the gallery while viewing the exhibition, as well as the narrative of the four seasons, remained in their function of creating a layered experience identical to the first variant of the Kaleidoscope.”
Ksenija Turčić was born in 1963 in Zagreb. After the diploma from the Graphic Department of the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb, in 1987 she graduated in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb, in the class of prof. Ferdinand Kulmer. She completed a specialization in visual arts, Corso Superiore di Arte Visiva, in 1995 in Como, Italy, organized by the Fondazione Antonio Ratti, head of the specialisation Joseph Kosuth. Since 2010 she is a mentor at the Department of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb, Croatia. She has been a full professor and a member of the Postgraduate Studies Council since 2011. She has won several awards and has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. She lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia.