Alen Ožbolt​
1966, Ptuj, lives v Ljubljani, Slovenia

Sleepwalker. The Third Man (Soft Emplacement), 1996
spatial installation 

It is (also) the idea of a direct, physical occupation, or colonization, of the (gallery) space or, properly speaking, of the staircase which connects two levels of the gallery building. The spatial installation thus connects and extends (in) between these levels. The work is not intangible, but rather tangible, emplaced (and exhibited) lying on the stairs (on the floor, in fact), although the installation has its height, the height reached by the stairs. The space-painting is intended for walking, and through walking the viewer also incorporates his/her body into the work. To step on the rest for the head is not a neutral act, but nevertheless the walking (soft, easy) takes place, there is a step and there are steps (unusual, unnatural). The spatial installation cannot be grasped with a single look, but rather – literally – with several steps. Walking is not waiting, it can be searching. Thus the installation offers two possible viewings: the view from a distance, from afar, and the immediate experience of the installation through walking. In fact, a spatial installation does not have its own space (when occupying the stairs it has only borrowed the space), its territory, its “grounds”. Somehow it is without the inner, unreachable space, for it is “all” within the reach of the viewer’s steps, exposed and stretched out in front of his/her feet.