Solo exhibition “1/318658”
Green Room Gallery, Zabok, Croatia
Heraclites said that man cannot put his foot in the same river twice; he can stand in the same place, but it is no longer the same water. Mario Matoković perhaps thinks along the same lines as this thought of Heraclites’. Respecting the uniqueness and unrepeatability of a moment, he strives to bring it into consciousness and preserve it as a footnote that he will build upon, and put in a communicational relationship with some other footnote, creating a new reality along the way – putting together the incompatible, and separating that which is connected. Observing. Questioning. Acting through inaction. Matoković quite successfully demystifies the world we live in, placing us in front of waters into which we do not want to step, and before which, at times consciously, and at other unconsciously, we close our eyes if they happen to enter our sight. To be a number, a statistic, an un-identity, is something that provokes Matoković, and about which he has spoken out in his works thus far (“133/ 66,5 / 33,25 / 1”, 2008; and “Barrel”, 2009). Thematically along the same track as these previous works which questioned societal problems of the times we live in, in the work “1/318658” he has spoken out in a similar manner as well. As a silent observer, he records life stories of people who, in a seemingly similar manner, and emotionally in the completely opposite way, contemplate the uncertainty of their existence. As an ironic connective tissue, and to infuse everything with an even deeper and colder credibility, he introduces a print of an employment record book, and the number 1/318658, which was the number of unemployed people in the Republic of Croatia at the moment of recording. The author strives to maintain a purely observing part, but through careful semantic exposing of the factual state we, however, meet not the author-observer, but an author who is fully aware of the dehumanized reality, whose sensibility is on the verge of fragility, refined, devoid of any pathos and noise, but still strong enough to disintegrate the viewer’s (un)consciousness with his recording. Nevertheless, with regards to the foragers of plastic bottles, and human fate reduced to a print of a can from his previous works, in the work 1/318658 he went one step further, and identified the numbers, gave them a face, a visual identity, recorded them, and wrested them out from the river of similar people; he declared them. What comes next? Will he, infected with the virus of searching, once again step into the unpredictable river of human fates, and where will it take him (and us alongside him)? The answers to these questions are to be found in Matoković’s new recordings.
Text by Vlatka Bosutić Cvijić, 2013
Samostalna izložba “1/ 318658”
Galerija Green Room , Zabok, Hrvatska
Heraklit je rekao da čovjek ne može dva put stati u istu rijeku, može stati na isto mjesto, ali to više nije ista voda. Možda upravo na tragu Heraklitove misli Mario Matoković, poštujući jedinstvenost i neponovljivost trenutka, trudi se osvijestiti ga i sačuvati kao zabilješku koju će kasnije nadograđivati i stavljati u komunikacijski odnos s nekom drugom bilješkom tvoreći pri tome novu stvarnost. Spajati nespojivo, razdvajati spojeno. Promatrati. Propitivati. Djelovati nedjelovanjem.Matoković vrlo uspješno demistificira svijet u kojemu živimo suočavajući nas s vodama u koje i ne želimo ugaziti i pred kojima, ponekad svjesno, a ponekad nesvjesno, zatvaramo oči, ako nam se slučajno nađu u vidokrugu. Biti broj, statistika, neidentitet, nešto je što Matokovića provocira i o čemu je progovarao i u svom dosadašnjem stvaralaštvu ( 133 / 66,5 / 33,25 / 1, 2008. i , Barel, 2009. ). Tematski na tragu tih prijašnjih radova koji su propitkivali socijalnu problematiku vremena u kojemu živimo, i u radu 1/318658 progovorio je na sličan način. Kao nijemi promatrač, kamerom bilježi životne priče ljudi koji, na prividno sličan, a emotivno posve suprotan način, promišljaju neizvjesnost svoje egzistencije. Kao ironijsku poveznicu sudbina, a da bi svemu dao još dublju i hladniju vjerodostojnost, ubacuje otisak radne knjižice i broj 1/318658 , koji je u trenutku bilježenja bio broj nezaposlenih u Republici Hrvatskoj. Autor se trudi zadržati čisto promatračku ulogu, ali pažljivim semantičkim razgrtanjem činjeničnosti ipak nailazimo, ne na autora promatrača, nego na autora potpuno svjesnog dehumanizirane realnosti čiji je senzibilitet na granici krhkosti, istančan i lišen svake patetike i buke, a opet dovoljno snažan da (ne)svijest promatrača gotovo brutalno rasprsne svojim zapisom. Ipak, u odnosu na tragače za plastičnim bocama i ljudske sudbine svedene na otisak limenke iz prethodnih radova, u radu 1/318658 otišao je korak dalje i brojeve identificirao, dao im lica, vizualni identitet, zabilježio, istrgnuo iz rijeke sličnih. Obznanio ih. I što dalje? Hoće li, zaražen virusom traganja, opet zakoračiti u nepredvidivu rijeku ljudskih sudbina i kamo će ga to (zajedno s nama) odvesti? Odgovore na ta pitanja valja nam potražiti u nekim novim Matokovićevim zapisima.
Vlatka Bosutić Cvijić, 2013.
Mario Matoković 