Gregor Kregar : Contact


DWELLING FOR NORDUNG Since the beginning of time, mankind has considered it as an expression of its Earthly weakness and inadequacy to be bound to the Earth, to be unable to free itself from the mysterious shackles of gravity. Not without good reason then has the concept of the transcendental always been associated with the idea of weightlessness, the power "to be able freely to rise into the sky." And most people even today still take it as a dogma that it is indeed unthinkable for Earthly beings ever to be able to escape the Earth. Is this point of view really justified? Hermann Potocnik Noordung , ‘The Problem With Space Travel’ Gregor Kregar currently lives and works in Berlin; the city where the visionary Slovenian engineer and space scientist Herman Potocnik Ordung, first published his book *‘The Problem With Space Travel’* in 1928. This book was one of the most influential texts contributing to development of Space exploration and rocket science. While in Berlin Gregor is working on a structure inspired by Nordung’s great and anticipatory vision of the future. This work will further explore the possibility of mobile, floating utopian architecture. The sculptural construction will be designed for a location within Mestni Trg, in the old city center of Ljubljana. The work will be suspended in the air and will look like a reflective, crystal cloud. The work will be showed in conjunction with a major survey exhibition of Slovenian Contemporary Sculpture in September 2009.
posted 19. February 2009

ARTS/INDUSTRY PROGRAM RESIDENCY AT KOHLER Co. Gregor was awarded a 2009 Arts/Industry Program Residency at Kohler Co. This residency is undoubtedly the most unusual on-going collaboration between art and industry in the United States. Hundreds of emerging and established visual artists have benefited from the Arts/Industry program at Kohler Co. since its inception in 1974. Participants are exposed to a body of technical knowledge that enables them to explore forms and concepts not possible in their own studios as well as new ways of thinking and working.
posted 19. February 2009

VANISH, CONNELLS BAY SCULPTURE PARK, WAIHEKE, NEW ZEALAND To be installed in April 2008 Gregor Kregar is currently working on a large site-specific outdoor sculptural installation called *Vanish. This installation is commissioned by Connells Bay Sculpture Park as one of their major projects for 2008. Vanish* will be the final and largest self-portrait work from a series of sculptures Kregar has worked on for the last four years. This series of works began with the sculptural installation *I appear and disappear* in 2003. *Vanish* will consist of 160 ceramic figures. There will be 10 sets of 16 self-portrait figures; each set of 10 will be glazed in a different colour. The size of the figures will vary from 140 cm for the biggest one down to about 35cm for the smallest one. The figures will be positioned to start with the largest ones at the bottom/front of the site and the smallest ones on the top/back of the site. It is Kregar’s aim that the work will activate the space by changing perspective points. An exaggerated perspective will be created when walking up the valley towards the work yet when approaching the work from the back the work will fan out from the vanishing point. *Vanish* will be a self-portrait work yet at the same time it will also encompass a portrait of the anonymous person. The work questions how identity is reduced the more it is reproduced. Will the artist be shrinking or growing? This depends on which way the viewer would approach the work. Essentially *Vanish* will be a humanist work that will paradoxically depend on the point of view of the observer; it will suggest both the fragility of a particular art form and human life itself.
posted 17. February 2008

*PIERCING THE CLOUDS, TIN SHEDS GALLERY SYDNEY BIENNIAL, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA 18. June to 12. July 2008* *Piercing The Clouds* is the title for a site-specific installation at Tin Sheds Art Gallery in June-July 2008. The possibility of moving cities from the earth’s surface into the air will be a central focus of this project which will encompass futuristic sculptural constructions, video projection and relating 3d rendered photographic works. The project will serve as a kind of urban model for a floating metropolis which might pose as a practical solution for the lack of housing and overpopulation of cities around the world. Responding to the configuration of the exhibition space Gregor Kregar plans to make a combination of four different crystalline constructions and their associated shadows: These forms will be both free standing and attached to the wall organically protruding through the walls and moving through the space. The reflective constructions will start as simple shapes like an Icosahedron which will then grow into Icosi-dodecahedrons, Tetrahedrons and other complex geometric shapes. The combination of constructions and shadows will look like a maze of repeating crystalline mathematical forms that will twist the perspective and mirror the surrounding space of the gallery.
posted 17. February 2008

REFLECTIVE LULLABY, MICHAEL REID GALLERY, MELBOURNE ART FAIR ROYAL EXHIBITION BUILDING, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA 30 July to 3 August 2008 Michael Reid Gallery is proud to announce a solo project *Reflective Lullaby* by Gregor Kregar for their Melbourne Art Fair participation in July-August 2008. This project will transform the usual rectangular Art Fair stand into a real forest full of trees and other plants. The walls will be covered with a photographic print that will further enhance this unusual environment. Gregor Kregar will create a number of large complex geometric structures for wall and floor. These structures will be made out of laser-cur stainless steel and will be accompanied by a group of the artist’s own versions of large garden gnomes. The gnomes will be hand modeled and cast in stainless steel. The surfaces of both objects will be mirror polished and will reflect the surrounding environment. The two objects may appear like they have nothing in common yet they share similar histories where mysticism and science are intertwined. This site-specific installation will create an interactive experience in which the viewer’s image will become part of a kaleidoscopic reflection on the surface of the work.
posted 17. February 2008