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“Celebrating doubt” is the title of the sixth edition of the series of weekly exhibitions “I Pilastri” curated by the Malutta Foundation in Venice at the Joystick space. A format that reveals the ironic and unconventional spirit of the collective and invites us to question our beliefs about art. 

It’s called I Pilastri the new cycle of weekly exhibitions created by the Malutta Foundation, a multidisciplinary artistic collective based in Venice, born in 2013 at the behest of a group of painters from the city’s Academy of Fine Arts. The collective is composed of more than thirty artists, with heterogeneous cultural, geographical, linguistic and experiential backgrounds, thus favoring experimentation and variety. 
The format is an evolution of the Personalini series, launched in 2016. The latter gave space to the work of the members of the collective, allowing them to share their individual artistic research. 

THE ART OF ALEKSANDER VELIŠČEK

On Thursday, 6 February 2025, Aleksander Velišček’s solo exhibition was inaugurated at the Joystick space in Venice, the sixth of the eight weekly exhibitions included in the exhibition. 
Aleksander Velišček, born in 1982 in Šempeter pri Gorici, lives and works between Nova Gorica and Milan. Graduated in Painting and Visual Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, he has received numerous awards. In 2016 he took part in the Architecture Biennale in the Albanian Pavilion, held residencies at the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation in Venice and the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. His practice invites the viewer to reflect critically on their own worldview, arousing doubt and uncertainty. 

ALEKSANDER VELIŠČEK IN VENICE 

The work To ni to, kar vidim! (Stigmata di San Francesco by Jan Van Eyck), exhibited in the Venetian solo exhibition, shows a paradox that forces us to reconsider our way of perceiving art. The image reveals its deception: the holes are not holes, the canvas is nothing but a replica. Through the copy of the Flemish work, Velišček questions the status of art as a mere representation of reality. The work is never an entity in itself, but it is always something else: a feeling, a political idea, a narrative, a fantasy. In this case, the artist’s goal is to show us exactly what the work is, pushing us to think about what a painting is, what has value, what is true and what is false. 
“This is not what I see!”, the phrase uttered by the first visitor of Velišček’s exhibition at the Meduza gallery in Koper, for the artist fully reflects the paradox on which his own practice is based. In the series of works on display, the painted subjects, inspired by great names in painting, are mixed, in a bizarre relationship, some written texts, with an ironic character, able to create a hybrid language and destabilize the viewer. What we see is intertwined with the concept, giving rise to new levels of reading. The intention is not to provide definitive answers, but to stimulate critical thinking and open ourselves to doubt. 

Paola Caudullo 

https://cargocollective.com/fondazionemalutta/2024-25
https://www.aleksanderveliscek.com/

Translated with AI