Masom koja podliježe gravitaciji, volumenom čije površine privlače ili odbijaju ruku, približavaju ili odguruju promatrača od sebe, skulptura uvijek podsjeća na tijelo. Čak i kada ne prikazuje ljudsku ili životinjsku figuru, kada se, dakle, umjesto oponašanja fizičkog svijeta bavi apstraktnim formama, skulptura je određena tijelom. Otkada se nakon suradnje s Damirom Žižićem Kožul vratio samostalnim nastupima, tijelo je opet u centru njegove pažnje.
Evokacija tog tijela ne odvija se, međutim, posve u skladu s načelima modernističke skulpture. Tijelo je tu – Kožul od njega ne odustaje ni u svojim najambicioznijim instalacijama – ali ono više nije cjelovito, jedva ga prepoznajemo. Primjerice, u svjetlu naslova izložbe (Forensic Perpetuity), pet biomorfnih oblika izloženih u Galeriji Galženica 2017. moguće je interpretirati kao ostatke nekog tijela. Na tu mogućnost ne upućuje samo naslov izložbe, nego i određeni senzibilitet za modernističku skulpturu. Umjetnicima modernizma ljudsko tijelo nije bilo samo koristan reper u svijetu predmeta, nego i idealan oblik. U odnosu na njega svi drugi oblici stjecali su svoj smisao. Uspostavivši novu vezu između unutarnje strukture skulpture i njezine površine, prve je korake prema drugačijem prikazivanju tijela napravio Rodin. U njegovim su skulpturama forma i materijal bili toliko međuovisni da se niz strukturnih elemenata, kao što su silueta, površina ili masa, pojavljivao kao nešto nedovršeno, nešto što se neprestano mijenja i ovisi o osvjetljenju, okolišu, promatraču itd. Stereotipni opis skulptorskog umijeća, onaj koji kaže da umjetnik u materijalu treba otkriti unaprijed postojeću formu, samo je popularni izraz za zadatak koji si je Rodin bio postavio. U svakoj skulpturi postoji nešto što joj iznutra daje život, čak i kada se volumen rastvara, a masa komàda – tako bi se, između ostalog, mogao sažeti Rodinov pogled na modernu skulpturu.
Nakon izložbe u Galeriji Galženica, biomorfni oblici što se opiru u potpunosti poistovjetiti s ljudskom ili životinjskom anatomijom – kao da pripadaju nekoj drugoj vrsti tijela, nekom drugoj vrsti života! – ostali su u središtu Kožulove pažnje na izložbama u HDLU-u (2018.), MSU-u (2019.) i sada u Galeriji Josip Račić (2021.). Njihov je organski karakter Kožul dodatno istaknuo uporabom industrijski proizvedenih predmeta i materijala kao što su metalne šipke, samostojeći metalni stalci, kugle različitih veličina, podne gumene prostirke, utezi, gumena crijeva, izolacijska spužva i slično. Primarna funkcija ovih predmeta leži u povezivanju biomorfnih oblika. Bez njih, oblici bi bez vidljivog reda bili razbacani po prostoru galerije. Time Kožul otvara mogućnost da sve što vidimo u galerijskom prostoru doživimo kao objekte koji pripadaju nekom višem formalnom redu. Ono što je modernistička skulptura činila na planu svakog pojedinog skulpturalnog objekta – uspostavljala odnos između skeleta skulpture i njegove površine ili između volumena i siluete – to je Kožul izveo u okviru ambijentalne instalacije. Stoga, na tri izložbene instalacije – u HDLU-u, MSU-u i u Galeriji Josip Račić – možemo gledati i kao na tri jedinstvene skulpture.
Prikazuje li autor skulpturalno tijelo u trenutku dezintegracije ili integracije? To je teško utvrditi, jer Kožul voli ambivalenciju, ali najprecizniji odgovor bi obuhvatio i jednu i drugu mogućnost. Ukoliko je riječ o procesu integracije, može se konstatirati da skelet Kožulove skulpture – šipke, gumena crijeva, gumene prostirke itd. – ne uspijeva okupiti svoje dijelove, dovesti biomorfne oblike u međuodnos koji bi formirao kontinuirani volumen tijela. U odnosu na izložbu u Galeriji Galženica, na kojoj biomorfne oblike nije povezivalo ništa doli pogled promatrača, Kožul je napravio korak dalje. Sada to više nije samo tijelo koje se raspalo – niz međusobno izoliranih oblika, svaki sa svojim pseudopostamentom – nego i tijelo koje se nekako pokušava oformiti. Ako je u Galeriji Galženica Kožul prikazao jednu post festum situaciju – mirovanje dijelova tijela nakon dezintegracije i smrti – moglo bi se reći da je na kasnijim izložbama pokušao prikazati post post festum situaciju, to jest u galerijski ambijent uvesti još jedan događaj – proces oformljenja (postajanje). Naime, naglašavajući suprotnost između vertikalne i horizontalne organizacije elemenata, računajući na učinak koji na promatrača ostavlja jukstapozicija mekih i tvrdih materijala, na odnos između pravocrtnih i krivocrtnih formi, Kožul je proizveo efekt gibanja. Ono što izgleda kao dezintegracija (razlijevanje, rastakanje, topljenje) oblika, može izgledati i kao proces konsolidacije ili uspravljanja, odnosno može predstavljati i odumiranje i oživljavanje. Skulpturalno tijelo tako nije ni (potpuno) mrtvo, ni (potpuno) živo. Mrtvo je, jer je raskomadano; živo, jer se giba. Kožulova obrada biomorfnih oblika, također, na neki način ukazuje na tragove života. Naime, njihova površina sugerira da je u unutrašnjosti nešto od posebne važnosti što traži posebnu brigu, kao da forma nikada nije dovoljno zaštićena pa iziskuje neprestano oblaganje novim slojevima.
Što je preneseno značenje ovih instalacija – skulptura? Na što nam autor pokušava skrenuti pažnju, birajući naslove s višestrukim značenjima (Forensic Perpetuity, Forensic Folklore: Archipelago, Sisyphus Exalted: Excersing Repetitions i Intercisus) i izlažući ove enigmatične forme? Kožul je sklon odgovornost za značenje prebaciti na promatračeva leđa, ali jasno je da ove izložbe nisu nastale zbog formalističkih razloga, iako je formalna inovacija ono što prvo zamjećujemo i ono čemu s razlogom dajemo prednost u interpretaciji. Značenje Kožulovih instalacija nemoguće je iscrpiti na području umjetničke referencijalnosti. Ova bizarna tijela nisu tu samo zbog podsjećanja na, primjerice, raskomadana ljudska tijela iz Goyina ciklusa Užasi rata ili na citat istoga motiva braće Chapman. Neće nam u potrazi za odnosom ovih radova prema suvremenosti puno pomoći ni reference na kojima sâm Kožul inzistira, spominjući radove Raula Goldonija i Louise Bourgeois, kao nadahnuće u najnovijem radu.
U središtu su Kožulove pažnje, naime, kompleksni i nepovezani društveni fenomeni. Dovesti u blisku vezu međusobno udaljene i suprotstavljene pojave metoda je koju Kožul baštini iz tradicije umjetničke avangarde i koju koristi u svim svojim javnim nastupima. Rat i masovna ubojstva s jedne i tehnološke utopije s druge strane; ideologija krvi i tla s jedne i fantazije o umjetnoj inteligenciji s druge strane; nostalgično prizivanje industrijskog društva s jedne i ubrzanje društvenih promjena (globalno zatopljenje, rodna teorija i politika, infotainment itd.) s druge strane. Iako širina referenci i asocijacija na koje Kožul računa, promatrača mogu zbuniti, pa i odvesti u krivom smjeru, izazove koje njegovi radovi postavljaju pred publiku ne treba odbaciti kao primjer postmodernističke igre. Proturječja obilježavaju suvremeno doba i upravo ona stoje u korijenu Kožulovog pokušaja da prikaže svijet oko sebe.
Oduzeti skulpturi pravo na predstavljanje kompleksnih društvenih pojava ne čini se odviše dalekovidnim, osobito danas kada monumentalne spomeničke forme ponovno stječu i umjetničku i društvenu popularnost. Nije potrebno posezati za slavnim svjetskim primjerima, kao primjerice za Davidom Smithom, koji je svoje skulpture – toteme – oblikovao imajući na umu Drugi svjetski rat u kojem je i sâm sudjelovao (skulpture su nosile naslove Sablast rata, Silovanje, Ratni pejzaž i slično). Dovoljno je prizvati u sjećanje apstraktne volumene Dušana Džamonje, Vojina Bakića, Ksenije Kantoci i drugih koji su, što kroz galerijsku, što kroz spomeničku plastiku pokušali izraziti svoje povijesno iskustvo. Na pola puta između figure i znaka, ti oblici nisu prikazivali nešto arhaično ili fantastično, nego su izražavali osobna i društvena stajališta u mjeri u kojoj je, nakon Drugog svjetskog rata, ekspresionistička apstrakcija to činila i na drugim područjima umjetnosti.
Kožulova osobita interpretacija modernističke skulpture – transpozicija skulpturalnog tijela u medij instalacije, te njegova razgradnja – podrazumijevala je i promjenu svjetonazora. Pišući o Henryju Mooreu, Herbert Read je primijetio da njegovu umjetnost određuje integrirajući vitalizam. Moore je, naime, jednaku važnost pridavao ljudskom tijelu (ležeći akt, motivi obitelji ili majke i djeteta) i kamenim oblucima s plaže. Organske i anorganske fenomene (kamenje, kristali itd.) promatrao je s nepodijeljenom pažnjom, jer je u njima pronalazio iste zakone. Sličnu pažnju prema živom i neživom primjećujemo i kod Kožula, ali njegov integrirajući princip, za razliku od Mooreova, u središtu nema čovjeka, barem ne čovjeka kakvog je zamišljao moderni humanizam. Umjesto obgrljujuće prisutnosti ljudskog tijela koju prepoznajemo u poetikama Rodina, Moorea, Brancusija i drugih, kod Kožula prije otkrivamo nešto kao informaciju o tijelu (kodiranu i sekvencioniranu sad ovako, sad onako).
Što znači imati tijelo u modernom dobu, odnosno, kako se život tog tijela može prikazati u skulpturi, treba zahvaliti modernoj umjetnosti. Ništa s modernim svijetom više nisu imala tijela Michelangelovih skulptura ili tijela koja su prikazivali neoklasicistički umjetnici. To su bila idealizirana tijela i pripadala su prije bogovima nego ljudima koje su moderni umjetnici sretali na ulicama i čija su tijela voljeli, ljubili ili gubili u ratovima. U središtu Kožulovog bizarnog vitalizma, međutim, nije ljudsko tijelo, nego jedan oblik materije koji je u neprestanom toku, u stalnoj metamorfozi. Kožulov izokrenuti gestalt ne počiva samo na integraciji živog i neživog svijeta – primjerice, ljudskog tijela i kamena u slučaju Moorea, ili ljudskog tijela i mita kao u slučaju Brancusija – nego uključuje i društvene procese (znanost, ekonomiju, tehnologiju itd.). Ono što nam na njegovim izložbama zaokuplja pažnju nije dakle tradicionalna skulpturalna forma, nego određena materijalna formacija. Ona simbolizira procese koji se odvijaju na razini prirodnih i društvenih entiteta nad kojima kao čovječanstvo nemamo nikakvu kontrolu. Prikazati neizvjesnost uzrokovanu tim saznanjem, a ne posegnuti za arhetipskom simbolikom i metafizikom, predstavlja Kožulovo osobito postignuće.
* Izložba: Kristian Kožul, Intercisus, Galerija Josip Račić, Zagreb, 7.10 – 31.10. 2021.
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With a mass that is subject to gravity, and volume whose surfaces attract or repel the hand, pull the observer closer or push him away, the sculpture is always reminiscent of a body. Even when it does not depict a human or animal figure, when it, therefore, deals with abstract forms instead of imitating the physical world, the sculpture is determined by the body. Ever since Kožul, after his collaboration with Damir Žižić, went back to staging solo exhibitions, the body has once again become the centre of his attention.
The evocation of this body, however, does not take place entirely in accordance with the principles of modernist sculpture. The body is there – Kožul does not give up on it even in his most ambitious installations – but, it is no longer whole and is barely recognizable. For example, the five biomorphic forms showcased at the Galženica Gallery in 2017 can be interpreted, in light of the exhibition title (Forensic Perpetuity), as the remains of a body. It is not only the title of the exhibition that suggests this possibility, but also a certain sensibility for modernist sculpture. For modernist artists, human body has not only been a useful point of reference in the world of objects, but also an ideal form. All other forms acquired meaning in relation to it. Having established a new connection between the inner structure of the sculpture and its surface, Rodin took first steps towards a different representation of the body. In his sculptures, form and material were so interdependent that a number of structural elements, like the silhouette, surface or mass, appeared as something unfinished, something that is constantly changing and depends on lighting, environment, the observer, etc. Stereotypical description of sculptural skill, which says that the artist should discover a pre-existing form in the material, is just a popular term for a task that Rodin had set for himself. There is something in every sculpture that gives it life from the inside, even when the volume is opened up, and the mass is broken into pieces – this is how, among other things, one could sum up Rodin’s view of modern sculpture.
After the exhibition in the Galženica Gallery, biomorphic forms that refuse to be fully identified with human or animal anatomy – as if they were parts of some other type of body, some other lifeform! – remained the focus of Kožul’s attention in exhibitions at the Croatian Association of Artists (2018), the Museum of Contemporary Art (2019) and now in the Josip Račić Gallery (2021). Kožul further emphasized their organic character, by using the industrially produced objects and materials such as: metal rods, freestanding metal stands, balls of different sizes, rubber floor mats, weights, rubber hoses, insulation sponge and the like. The primary function of these objects is to connect the biomorphic forms. Without them, the forms would be scattered without any apparent order throughout the gallery space. Thus, Kožul opens the possibility to experience everything we see in the gallery space as objects that belong to some higher formal order. What modernist sculpture did in terms of each individual sculptural object – establishing a relationship between the skeleton of the sculpture and its surface or between volume and silhouette – is what Kožul did in the framework of an ambient installation. We can, therefore, view the three exhibition installations – in the Croatian Association of Artists, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Josip Račić Gallery – as three unique sculptures.
Does the artist show the sculptural body at the moment of disintegration or integration? It is difficult to ascertain, because Kožul likes ambivalence, but the most precise answer would include both possibilities. If it is a process of integration, it can be concluded that the skeleton of Kožul’s sculpture – rods, rubber hoses, rubber mats etc. – fails to bring its parts together, to bring the biomorphic forms into an interrelationship that would form a continuous volume of the body. In relation to the exhibition at the Galženica Gallery, where the only thing that connected the biomorphic forms was the observer’s gaze, Kožul takes a step further. Now, it is no longer just a body that has disintegrated – a series of mutually isolated forms, each with their own pseudo-pedestal – but a body that is somehow trying to form itself. If Kožul has shown a post-festum situation in the Galženica Gallery – stillness of body parts after disintegration and death – it could be said that in later exhibitions he tried to show a post-post-festum situation, that is, to introduce another event in the ambient of the gallery – the process of formation (becoming). Specifically, with an emphasis on the contrast between the vertical and horizontal organization of elements, and counting on the effect that juxtaposition of soft and hard materials has on the observer, on the relationship between rectilinear and curvilinear forms, Kožul has produced the effect of motion. What seems like a disintegration (overflowing, dissolving, liquifying) of forms, may also appear as a process of consolidation or erection, that is, it can represent both extinction and revival. The sculptural body is thus neither (completely) dead, nor (completely) alive. It is dead, because it is dismembered; it is alive, because it moves. Kožul’s treatment of biomorphic forms also, in a way, points to traces of life. Their surface actually suggests there is something particularly important in the interior that requires special care, as if the form is never sufficiently protected, so it warrants constant incrustation with new layers.
In a figurative sense, what is the meaning of these installations-sculptures? What is the artist trying to draw our attention to, by selecting titles with multiple meanings (Forensic Perpetuity, Forensic Folklore: Archipelago, Sisyphus Exalted: Exercising Repetitions and Intercisus) and exhibiting these enigmatic forms? Kožul is inclined to shift the responsibility of meaning onto the observer’s shoulders, but it is clear that these exhibitions were not created for formalistic reasons, although formal innovation is what we first notice and what we, rightly, prefer in interpretation. The meaning of Kožul’s installations cannot be exhausted in the field of artistic referentiality. These bizarre bodies are not here only to remind us of, for example, the dismembered human bodies from Goya’s series “The Disasters of War” or the Chapman brothers and their quotation of the same motif. The references that Kožul himself insists on, by mentioning the works of Raul Goldoni and Louise Bourgeois, as inspiration for his latest work, are not going to be of much help in our quest for the relationship between these works and contemporaneity.
Specifically, Kožul’s attention is focused on the complex and unrelated social phenomena. Bringing mutually distant and contradictory phenomena into close contact, is a method Kožul inherits from the tradition of the artistic avant-garde, and he uses it in all his public appearances. War and mass murder, on the one hand, and technological utopias, on the other; the ideology of blood and soil, on one side, and the fantasy of artificial intelligence, on the other; a nostalgic invocation of industrial society, on one hand, and acceleration of social change (global warming, gender theory and politics, infotainment, etc.), on the other. Although the breadth of references and associations that Kožul counts on may confuse the observer, even lead him in the wrong direction, the challenges that his works pose to the audience should not be dismissed as an example of a postmodernist game. Contradictions are a feature of contemporary age and they are precisely what is at the root of Kožul’s attempt to portray the world around him.
To deprive the sculpture of the right to present complex social phenomena, does not seem particularly far-sighted, especially today when monumental forms are regaining both artistic and social popularity. It is not necessary to resort to famous examples from around the world, such as the case of David Smith, for example, who created his sculptures-totems with World War II in mind, which he had himself participated in (the sculptures are titled “War Spectre”, “Rape”, “War Landscape” and the like) – it is enough to recall the abstract volumes of Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Ksenija Kantoci and others, who, both through gallery and monumental sculpture tried to express their historical experience. Midway between the figure and the sign, these forms did not depict anything archaic or fantastic, instead, they expressed personal and social viewpoints to the extent that, after World War II, Abstract Expressionism has done in other fields of art.
Kožul’s particular interpretation of modernist sculpture – the transposition of the sculptural body into the installation medium, and its deconstruction – also meant a change in worldview. Writing about Henry Moore, Herbert Read noted that his art is determined by an integrated vitality. Specifically, Moore attached equal importance to the human body (reclining nude, motifs of the family or mother and child) and beach pebbles. He observed both organic and inorganic phenomena (stones, crystals, etc.) with undivided attention, because he found in them the same laws. We notice, with Kožul, a similar attention to the living and inanimate, but his integrating principle, unlike Moore’s, does not have a man at the centre, at least not a man as imagined by modern humanism. Instead of the overarching presence of the human body that we recognize in the poetics of Rodin, Moore, Brancusi and others, in Kožul we discover something like information about the body (encoded and sequenced first this way, then the other).
We should thank modern art for the knowledge of what it means to have a body in the modern age, that is, how the life of that body can be depicted in sculpture. Michelangelo’s sculptural bodies or those depicted by neoclassical artists no longer had anything to do with the modern world. These were idealized bodies that belonged to the gods rather than to people whom modern artists encountered in the streets and whose bodies they loved, cherished or lost in wars. At the core of Kožul’s bizarre vitality, however, is not the human body, but rather a form of matter that is in constant flow, in permanent metamorphosis. Kožul’s inverted gestalt rests not only on the integration of the living and inanimate worlds –in Moore’s case, the human body and stone, or in Brancusi’s case, the human body and myth – but it also includes social processes (science, economy, technology, etc.). What occupies our attention in his exhibitions is therefore not the traditional sculptural form, but a particular material formation. It symbolizes processes that take place at the level of natural and social entities that we as humanity have no control over. To show uncertainty caused by this knowledge, without resorting to archetypal symbolism and metaphysics is Kožul’s singular achievement.
* Exhibition: Kristian Kožul, Intercisus, Josip Račić Gallery, Zagreb, October 7 – October 31, 2021
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