Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Rawan Almukhtar, Rosa Andraschek, To Be Used Seldom, Dream Bistričić Srića, May, Bojanić, Traian Cherecheș, Ken Gonzales-Day, Jelena Jureša, Stanya Kahn, Nikolay Karabinovych, Agron Nimonaj, Eva Papamargariti, Darija S. Radaković, Antoni Rayzhekov
Curator of the exhibition: Ma Animalimilian Lehner
Gallery of contemporary art and Regional Museum, 11. 9. 2026 – 3. 1. 2027
Best invited to the opening night of the International Group Exhibition distracted view, which will take place on Friday, 11. September, from 18. hours further in the gallery of Contemporary Art.
Programme
Gallery of contemporary art and Regional Museum, at 18. uri
Public guided tour of the exhibition with curator, female artists and artists.
Gallery of Contemporary Art, at 19. uri
Exhibition opening averted view.
Museum courtyard, from 20. hours on
Cate Hops, sound performance
Traian Cherechesh, sound performance
"Go ahead, there is nothing to see here!«
"Don't look away, Act!«
Much can be said about the act of looking away; yet Nietzsche wrote: "The Look Away will be my only negative."[1] these perspectives discover that what we direct our attention to – or what we choose to notice –represents reality for us: "we see things themselves, the world is what we see. [ ... ] However, the curious thing about this religion is that if we try to express it in theses or statements, if we ask ourselves what this "we" is, what it looks like and what is a thing or world, we find ourselves in a labyrinth of problems and contradictions.« [2]
I grew up believing that art has an impact and that it must respond to the urgent challenges of our time. Nevertheless, I am increasingly confronted with works that are labeled "political", either because of the excessive emphasis on portraying cruelty and injustice, or by the direct expression of an ideological position that leaves no room for ambiguity. This leads me to the question: What if we were to deal with these problems and contradictions – the very aspects of them that remain unclear when we observe the world, how it manifests itself to us and how they present it to us?
Conversely, looking away means avoiding focusing on a particular topic out of ignorance, fear, self-censorship, or the desire for non-involvement. This can be seen as a deliberate decision in the face of war atrocities, environmental destruction and the erasure of history. Art allows the viewer to direct their moral judgments upward, perceiving works of art as a form of relief from the world-shaping polycrisis. Even if we may not be interested in the content at all, in the exhibition we can instead find a place of Refuge – a place where we can completely get away from the outside world. All these behaviors are part of a common conception of what it means to look away: to resist looking at what we do not want to see.
But what happens if we approach the exhibition through the act of looking away? On the one hand, we can focus on the ignored and the invisible, whether it is hidden from our awareness or obscured by distractions. On the other hand, such an approach can serve as an invitation to rethink how we behave towards things that we would rather ignore, and to question thoughts that previously seemed irrefutable to us. This shift seems crucial considering the helplessness that many people feel in the face of war, climate change and ongoing global injustices.
"In fact, perhaps it is in the act of turning our eyes away from the objects of our supposed study, in the changing modes of attention we give them, that there is the potential to redefine the relationships between creators, objects and audiences. Can the averted gaze be understood not so much as an act of rebellion against participation in culture, but as its alternative form?« [3]
In legal frameworks pertaining to oppression, such as Code Noir, the right to direct one's gaze is a privilege reserved to whites. This distinction establishes a clear dividing line between those who are given full access to visuality and those who are forbidden to look back, and defines who can imagine what the future could look like without an oppressor. For centuries, visuality has been synonymous with authority (and truth, as mentioned above), while those who were forbidden to look back were imposed a averted look. Today, the opposite is true: looking away from cruel truths and unpleasant realities is a privilege.
This exhibition also talks about the need to look away to reflect and look beyond the image, and to discover "overlooked" stories and themes, thus pointing out the need for real observation, rather than pretending to know what needs to be done, or to use art as a substitute for genuine compassion. The exhibition averted gaze brings together works that reveal the boundaries of rendering. These works of art deliberately turn away from the obvious, but are nevertheless distinctly present: where the past is denied, the present is censored, and the future appears as a scenario of deprivation and deprivation – if only for those who cannot change its course.
Faced with the increasing spread of photographic documentation of wars and its placement among other types of images, Susan Sontag wrote: "photography is essentially an act of non-intervention. [ ... ] The one who interferes with what is happening cannot document; the one who documents cannot interfere with what is happening.« [4]
Let us emphasize: this exhibition does not advocate surrender or rejection of the struggle for a fairer world. In fact, it is a reflection on weakness and vulnerability – it asks how we can take the perspective of those who do not have the resources and strength to change their reality.
In safe spaces, such as a gallery, it is easy to isolate yourself from the outside world. Why worry here when everything seems so harmonious? However, when entering an exhibition, we often expect difficult, controversial political, social, ecological – or even deeply personal – issues to be on display. But these works rarely find a truly safe place.
This exhibition urges us to look away, look beyond, and ignore what we actually saw or could see – as an engaged, political form of viewing. With a averted look, we can focus on the hidden forces that shape our world. At the same time, by connecting history with the present, the exhibition encourages us to reassess current events, to question invisible effects and to think about how we "use" exhibitions – as an incentive to act or as an excuse for inaction.
Sometimes a distracted gaze can be an act of rebellion: a way to remember what was hidden, to notice where visual attention was directed and what was withdrawn from it, and to ask ourselves what is hidden from us and what remains invisible? From layers of history and deposits of waste, from muted voices to places at risk of erasure and the inability to speak or act, this exhibition devotes itself to the uncertain and invisible, asking what happens when the averted gaze becomes a way of seeing?
[1] Friedrich Nietzsche: The Gay Science , New York: Knopf Doubleday, pp. 223.
[2] Maurice Merleau-Pont (1968): the Visible and the Invisible , Evanston: north of the University of the Arts, p. 3.
[3] Irit Rogoff (2005): Looking a / A/, in: After Criticism, G. Butt (ed.), Oxford: blackwell get p. 119.
[4] Susan Sontag (1973): On Photography , New York city: the Rosetta Publishing,, pp. 8.
Regional Museum Celje-centre of Contemporary Arts
Text: Ma Animalimilian Lehner
Support: Austrian Cultural forum, ERSTE Foundation, Flanders State of the Art, Ministry of culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Municipality of Celje, Federal Ministry for housing, Art, Culture, Media and sport of the Republic of Austria
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Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Rawan Almukhtar, Rosa Andraschek, Nataša Berk, Sanja Bistričić Srića, Maja Bojanić, Traian Cherecheș, Ken Gonzales-Day, Jelena Jureša, Stanya Kahn, Nikolay Karabinovych, Agron Nimonaj, Eva Papamargariti, Darija S. Radaković, Antoni Rayzhekov
Kustos razstave: Maximilian Lehner
Galerija sodobne umetnosti in Pokrajinski muzej, 11. 9. 2026 – 3. 1. 2027
Najlepše vabljene_i na otvoritveni večer mednarodne skupinske razstave Odvrnjen pogled, ki bo v petek, 11. septembra, od 18. ure dalje v Galeriji sodobne umetnosti.
Program
Galerija sodobne umetnosti in Pokrajinski muzej, ob 18. uri
Javno vodstvo po razstavi s kustosom, umetnicami in umetniki.
Galerija sodobne umetnosti, ob 19. uri
Odprtje razstave Odvrnjen pogled.
Muzejsko dvorišče, od 20. ure dalje
Cate Hops, zvočni performans
Traian Cherecheš, zvočni performans
»Pojdi naprej, tu ni nič za videti!«
»Ne odvračaj pogleda, ukrepaj!«
Veliko se da povedati o dejanju odvračanja pogleda; še Nietzsche je zapisal: »Odvrnjen pogled bo moja edina negacija.« [1] Te perspektive odkrivajo, da tisto, kamor usmerjamo svojo pozornost – ali tisto, kar se odločimo opaziti –,za nas predstavlja resničnost: »Vidimo stvari same, svet je tisto, kar vidimo. […] Vendar je pri tej veri nenavadno to, da če jo skušamo izraziti v tezah ali izjavah, če se vprašamo, kaj je ta »mi«, kaj je videti in kaj je stvar ali svet, se znajdemo v labirintu težav in protislovij.« [2]
Odrasel sem v prepričanju, da ima umetnost vpliv in da se mora odzivati na nujne izzive našega časa. Kljub temu pa se vse pogosteje soočam z deli, ki so označena kot »politična«, bodisi zaradi pretiranega poudarka na prikazovanju krutosti in nepravičnosti bodisi z neposrednim izražanjem ideološkega stališča, ki ne pušča prostora za dvoumnost. To me vodi k vprašanju: kaj če bi se spopadli s temi težavami in protislovji – prav s tistimi njihovimi vidiki, ki ostajajo nejasni, ko opazujemo svet, kako se nam kaže in kako nam ga predstavljajo?
Nasprotno pa odvrnjen pogled pomeni, da se iz nevednosti, strahu, samocenzure ali želje po nevpletenosti izogibamo osredotočanju na določeno temo. To lahko razumemo kot namerno odločitev ob soočanju z vojnimi grozodejstvi, uničevanjem okolja in izbrisom zgodovine. Umetnost omogoča gledalcu, da svoje moralne sodbe usmeri navzvzen in umetniška dela dojema kot obliko olajšanja pred polikrizo, ki oblikuje svet. Četudi nas vsebina morda sploh ne zanima, lahko v razstavi namesto tega najdemo prostor zatočišča – kraj, kjer se lahko povsem umaknemo od zunanjega sveta. Vsa ta vedenja so del skupnega pojmovanja tega, kaj pomeni odvrniti pogled: upreti se pogledu na tisto, česar ne želimo videti.
Kaj pa se zgodi, če pristopimo k razstavi skozi dejanje odvračanja pogleda? Na eni strani se tako lahko osredotočimo na prezrto in nevidno, ne glede na to ali gre za skrito pred našim zavedanjem ali pa zakrito z motnjami. Na drugi strani pa lahko takšen pristop služi kot vabilo k ponovnemu premisleku o tem, kako se vedemo do stvari, ki bi jih raje prezrli, ter k prevpraševanju misli, ki so se znam prej zdele neizpodbitne. Ta premik se zdi ključen ob upoštevanju nemoči, ki jo mnogi ljudje občutijo ob soočanju z vojno, podnebnimi spremembami in nenehnimi globalnimi krivicami.
»Pravzaprav se morda prav v dejanju odvračanja pogleda od predmetov našega domnevnega proučevanja, v spreminjajočih se načinih pozornosti, ki jim jo namenjamo, nahaja potencial za novo opredelitev odnosov med ustvarjalci, objekti in občinstvi. Je mogoče odvrnjen pogled razumeti ne toliko kot dejanje upora proti sodelovanju v kulturi, temveč kot njegovo alternativno obliko?« [3]
V pravnih okvirih, ki se nanašajo na zatiranje, kot je bil Code Noir, je pravica usmeriti pogled na nekoga privilegij, pridržan belcem. Ta razlika vzpostavlja jasno ločnico med tistimi, ki jim je omogočen poln dostop do vizualnosti, in tistimi, ki jim je pogled nazaj prepovedan, ter opredeljuje, kdo si lahko predstavlja, kako bi lahko bila videti prihodnost brez zatiralca. Vizualnost je že stoletja sinonim za avtoriteto (in resnico, kot omenjeno zgoraj), medtem ko je bil tistim, ki jim je bilo prepovedano pogledati nazaj, vsiljen odvrnjen pogled. Danes je ravno nasprotno: odvrnjen pogled od krutih resnic in neprijetnih realnosti je privilegij.
Ta razstava govori tudi o tem, da moramo za premislek in pogled onkraj podobe odvrniti pogled, ter odkriti »spregledane« zgodbe in teme, s čimer opozarja na potrebo po resničnem opazovanju, namesto da se pretvarjamo, da vemo, kaj je treba storiti, ali da umetnost uporabljamo kot nadomestek za pristno sočutje. Razstava Odvrnjen pogled združuje dela, ki razkrivajo meje upodabljanja. Ta umetniška dela se namenoma obračajo stran od očitnega, a so kljub temu izrazito prisotna: tam, kjer se zanika preteklost, cenzurira sedanjost, prihodnost pa se kaže kot scenarij pomanjkanja in prikrajšanosti – pa čeprav le za tiste, ki ne morejo spremeniti njenega poteka.
Soočena z vse bolj pogostim širjenjem fotografskega dokumentiranja vojn in njegovim umeščanjem med druge vrste podob je Susan Sontag zapisala: »Fotografiranje je v bistvu dejanje nevmešavanja. […] Tisti, ki posega v dogajanje, ne more dokumentirati; tisti, ki dokumentira, ne more posegati v dogajanje.« [4]
Poudarimo: ta razstava ne zagovarja predaje ali zavračanja boja za pravičnejši svet. Pravzaprav je razmislek o šibkosti in ranljivosti – sprašuje, kako lahko prevzamemo perspektivo tistih, ki nimajo sredstev in moči, da bi spremenili svojo realnost.
V varnih prostorih, kot je galerija, se je enostavno izolirati od zunanjega sveta. Zakaj bi bili tukaj v skrbeh, ko se pa vse zdi tako skladno? Vendar pa ob vstopu na razstavo pogosto pričakujemo, da bodo na ogled težka, sporna politična, družbena, ekološka – ali celo globoko osebna – vprašanja. Toda ta dela redko najdejo resnično varen prostor.
Ta razstava nas poziva, naj odvrnemo pogled, pogledamo onkraj in prezremo tisto, kar smo dejansko videli ali bi lahko videli – kot angažirano, politično obliko gledanja. Z odvrnjenim pogledom se lahko osredotočimo na skrite sile, ki oblikujejo naš svet. Obenem pa nas razstava s povezovanjem zgodovine s sedanjostjo spodbuja k ponovni oceni aktualnih dogodkov, k prevpraševanju nevidnih učinkov in k razmišljanju o tem, kako »uporabljamo« razstave – kot spodbudo k delovanju ali kot izgovor za neukrepanje.
Včasih je odvrnjen pogled lahko dejanje upora: način, da se spomnimo na tisto, kar je bilo skrito, da opazimo, kam je bila usmerjena vizualna pozornost in čemu je bila odtegnjena, ter da se vprašamo, kaj nam je prikrito in kaj ostaja nevidno? Od plasti zgodovine in usedlin odpadkov, od utišanih glasov do krajev, ki jim grozi izbris, ter nezmožnosti govoriti ali ukrepati, se ta razstava posveča negotovemu in nevidnemu ter sprašuje, kaj se zgodi, ko odvrnjen pogled postane način gledanja?
[1] Friedrich Nietzsche: The Gay Science , New York: Knopf Doubleday, p. 223.
[2] Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1968): The Visible and the Invisible , Evanston: Northwestern University Press, p. 3.
[3] Irit Rogoff (2005): Looking Away, in: After Criticism, G. Butt (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell, p. 119.
[4] Susan Sontag (1973): On Photography , New York: Rosetta Publishing, p. 8.
Pokrajinski muzej Celje – Center sodobnih umetnosti
Besedilo: Maximilian Lehner
Podpora: Avstrijski kulturni forum, Fundacija ERSTE, Flanders State of the Art, Ministrstvo za kulturo RS, Mestna občina Celje, Zvezno ministrstvo za stanovanjska vprašanja, umetnost, kulturo, medije in šport Republike Avstrije
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