Tina Škrlj

The Exhibition Space
A short piece on Tina Škrlj’s installation for the exhibition ‘Performing Humor’.

Text by Joeri Verbesselt
Exhibition: an act of showing some quality or trait; an event at which objects (such as works of art) are put out in a public space for people to look at; a public show of something; the act of showing something in public. (Merriam-Webster online)
I’m lost in space, lost in between the artworks. It’s art and art can be anything, so everything in this exhibition space is art. Fact.
I wander, my eyes are scanning the space. It’s art and art can be anything, so everything in this exhibition space is art. Fact.
I hear some strange sounds while I’m still wandering. It’s art and art can be anything, so everything in this exhibition space is art. Fact?
These sounds start to irritate me. What is it? Where does it come from? Is it some kind of deer burling? No, it’s much stranger than that. Maybe a dinosaur? Or a monster straight from a weird 80’s sci-fi movie?
Oh, never mind… Just continue the wandering. Art, art, art…
(Oh, and the sounds persist to continue, but I refuse to hear them any longer…) Art.
By accident, I notice a monitor high up on a wall. It screens a short video-loop of a smiling young girl with blond hairs standing against a bright sky. She wears sunglasses and a cap. (She reminds me of one of those Spring Break girls, but then a bit more ‘decent’.) Only now I listen to the sounds. They’re coming from a speaker next to the monitor.
I think: “Hah, look who’s standing there, the female human looking down on me acting as if she’s making whale sounds!”
But who’s laughing at whom? She’s still laughing… Carelessly. Repeating her smile endlessly. I was expecting something exotic and now I get this… I start doubting. I start doubting myself. Who am I fooling?! Dumb, stupid art hipster…
Is this space exhibiting art to me or is it me that is exhibited to the art(ists)? Fact?