Showing the Elle magazine
1962
Photography
Materials: ink, paper
Collection: Collection Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana.
Showing the Elle Magazine documents a situation when the artist, during a winter trip to the mountain of Slijeme near Zagreb, partly took his clothes off and started showing a copy of Elle magazine to people around. His (partly) naked body, which functions as an intruder in an ordinary situation, provokes and reflects a new, strong awareness of the human body. The simple act of showing the Elle magazine opens up complex relations, one of which is male-female relationships, another the relation of the real and imaginary. Neither should we overlook the contrast between the glamorous images of the distant consumer society and the every-day reality of the socialist world. This contrast, however, only underlines the dimension of desire, which is represented by the magazine: one's bodily presence is determined by the absent, unreal object of desire. And finally, the photo, as the document of the action, is itself a homage to the glamorous art of photography as present in the mass media. (Igor Zabel)
