What does Marjan Gumilar's exhibition in kostanjevica Church show and tell us?
The way of the cross. The process of how a painting goes through stages of suffering, cutting and torture, only through extreme reduction, on the verge of abstraction, to reach a sublimity that can compete with time, climb to the altar and reach across.
In order to reduce the image to its fundamental components, Gumilar does not need to cut or multiply it, but shows its way of the cross in itself. Then the process, which can already be detected within a single image, is further alienated into space and unfolded into individual sequences. At the moment when you put together (more than) two images, when you initiate (at least) two cuts, not only the question of the spatial sequence (left, right) and the temporal sequence (before, after) opens, but it happens above all and first questions beyond: physics is hollowed out by metaphysics, the world is able to find in itself a cut to the sacred.
On the empty altar of the kostanjevica monastery church, Marjan Gumilar's painting is reduced to its fundamental components: black, white, stroke, plot, light, glare – and our gaze. The church is placed upside down here, since in the most sacred place of its ritual it puts not a God-artist, but a believer-viewer.
Photo By Damjan Shvarc
Kaj nam pokaže in pove razstava Marjana Gumilarja v kostanjeviški cerkvi?
Križev pot slike. Proces, kako gre slika skozi faze trpljenja, rezanja in mučenja, da bi šele skozi skrajno redukcijo, na robu abstrakcije, dosegla sublimnost, ki se lahko kosa s časom, spleza na oltar in seže čez.
Da bi reduciral sliko na njene temeljne sestavine, jo Gumilar ne rabi ne rezati ne multiplicirati, ampak njen križev pot pokaže v njej sami. Nato pa proces, ki ga je mogoče zaznati že znotraj posamezne slike, še povnanji v prostor in razpre na posamezne sekvence. V trenutku, ko postaviš skupaj (več kot) dve sliki, ko iniciraš (vsaj) dva reza, se ne odpre le vprašanje prostorskega sosledja (levo, desno) in časovnega sosledja (prej, potem), temveč se zgodi predvsem in najprej vprašanja onstrana: fizika se izdolbe z metafiziko, svet zmore v sebi najti rez do svetega.
Na praznem oltarju kostanjeviške samostanske cerkve je slikarstvo Marjana Gumilarja reducirano na svoje temeljne sestavine: črna, bela, poteza, ploskev, svetloba, odblesk – in naš pogled. Cerkev je tu postavljena na glavo, saj na najbolj sveto mesto svojega obreda ne postavlja boga-umetnika, ampak vernika-gledalca.
Foto: Damjan Švarc
