We are delighted to announce that the 10th Triennial of Contemporary U3 Art Award goes to visual artist Gala Alica.
For the first time since the Triennial's foundation, a prize of €4,000 has been awarded to one of the participating artists by the members of the International Jury: Anne Barlow, Bernard Blistène, Luigi Fassi, Christelle Havranek, and Simone Sentall.
JURY STATEMENT
“After a final exchange between jury members, and taking into account the number of votes cast for his or her name, the winner is visual artist Gala Alica. The high quality of the exhibition and the diversity of the participants made the final decision difficult. Indeed, the work of a number of artists with established careers led the jury to favor the selection of an emerging artist. The jury came together to award the prize to Gala Alica for the relevance of her message and the quality of her work. The impact of the artist's proposal Edge I and Edge II, as well as the relationship of the proposed work to the public space, led the jury as a whole to put forward her name.”
ABOUT THE WORK AND THE ARTIST
The project Edge I and Edge II deals with the often overlooked Windischer Street behind the Moderna galerija (Museum of Modern Art) in Ljubljana, drawing attention to the complex use of public space that is no longer accessible due to various prohibitions. Once a public thoroughfare, the street is now strictly controlled for the needs of the American and Russian Embassies. The constant presence of security fences and police and security services reveals a broader problem of public space whose public use is determined by the influence of vested interests. Made of recycled insulation materials from Ljubljana’s waste collection centers, the temporary intervention is the third part of the No Loitering series (2020–), in which site-specific sculptures draw attention to less visible elements of public space and question their functions. This time, the sculptures test the limits of what is possible, revealing the failure of the transition into protected space. While the first work attempts to cross the boundary of the security fence on the lawn, the second object enters the space of Windischer Street from the museum’s balcony through the air mass above the street. The forms of both sculptures are shaped along the borders of the forbidden space, further emphasizing these boundaries. Edge I and Edge II, placed in the open space behind the Moderna galerija, further question the lack of presence of more contemporary artworks in the vicinity of the art institution and in the public space more broadly.
In her artistic practice, Gala Alica deals with problematics of urban space and the thin line between private and public space. Gentrification and privatization of public spaces, their historical narratives, and with it, the question of their inclusiveness/exclusiveness are the starting points of her research for sculptures and site-specific interventions. Through explorations of broader socio-political contexts and usage of elements of our built environment, the artist investigates characteristics of human relationships, intimacy and alienation. She is currently studying visual arts at die Angewandte, the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, and has a bachelor's degree in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. She also studied at the University of Art and Design in Linz. Solo exhibitions include Stuck in Motion (Pražirna AB3, Prague, CZ, 2023), Someone’s Land (Gallery Alkatraz, Ljubljana, SLO, 2022), and Generated Views (Gallery Nova Izložba Pešak, Ljubljana, SLO, 2022). Her works have been exhibited as part of many group exhibitions, among others also in In the Open (Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Wien, AT), Grit in the Eye, Stone in the Shoe (Gallery Courtney Jeager, Basel, CH), Rally: (Bistro21, Leipzig, DE) and The Stone is the Skin (Zink Wien, Wien, AT).
