On Thursday 6th April 2023, LABS Contemporary Art is pleased to present Black Box, solo exhibition of Slovak artist Milan Vagač. The exhibition presents a selection of previously unseen works, born out of the reflection on the relationship between man and technology.
In contemporary aesthetics, the spectator is more and more fascinated by the seductive surface of the device, never questioning its internal mechanisms. Computer circuits, cables, precious metals, algorithmic entries: all such things, packed beneath the plastic cover of the apparatus, remain inaccessible to the ordinary user, since they are hidden in black boxes.
The series Gizmo, term which is normally used for a device or machine which performs a particular task, usually in a new and efficient way, but of which one does not know the true name, is a clear reference to the concept of “black blox”. The artist, through the medium of painting, realizes illusory surfaces of abstract dispositifs, showing hidden layers and mechanisms. The spectator cannot help but being fascinated by the painting structure thanks to the canvases transparency and to the anatomy of the wooden frame.
A huge part of Vagač’s pictorial practice lays in the representation of geometrical abstract signs. The artist references, through his language, art forms typical of the Bauhaus school, which get deconstructed in individual elements in his pictorial practice.
This deconstructive thought can be found as well in the new series of works, presented for the first time in Italy by LABS Gallery. His works’ surface is only partially painted, in order to reveal the structural elements laying underneath it. Denying the work flatness, the artist reveal its hidden layers and structures.
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