PERFORMANCE, RITUAL AND MEMORY
Barbara Borcic

In their art practice, all three artists have been preoccupied with the question of woman and the position of the woman artist in society. In some specific aspects their artwork has been related to fashion. Marija M. Pungercar and Ema Kugler have been known as fashion, set, and costume designers. Their creations, however, were never meant to be simply worn. They have always been used in the context of performance, exploring the symbolic, semantic, and visual possibilities of dress-as-object within the framework of a contemporary ritual. These experiences can be traced in their recent art practice.

Ema Kugler, Made 1991

Ema Kugler's field of interest covers different media: performance, installation, and video. Her intermedia performances combine words, body-sculpture, movement, acting, video, and music. The performances form a basis for her technologically advanced video works questioning the relation between nature and culture, mythology and everyday rituals.

Marija M. Pungercar, Made By Woman

Marija M. Pungercar's installations and performances are characterized by play and humor and, at the same time, are reflections upon repetitious everyday rituals grounded in place and time. We could say that the artist has become a contemporary nomad willing to share her experiences with others.

Janja Vrabec explores the relation between a painting (its margins and the decentered surface), real objects (clothes, a shoe, a handbag, flowers), ready-made images (shadow pictures), and the specific gallery space. The artist arranges the material into still lifes, and finally freezes a chosen incident into a frame. Her recent objects derive from the artist's own imagery. They are fragile personal memories, subtly transformed and combined into works of art.

Janja Vrabec, A Sock and a Soap