The curator Martina Vovk, PhD, presents the short, but highly interesting phase in the work of the Slovenian sculptor Tone Lapajne (1933–2011).

“A few years ago Moderna galerija received, through the kind donation of Dragica Čadež, four important works by Slovene sculptor Tone Lapajne: Vertical Shift (1968), Shape Analysis (1969−1970), Movement of Parallels (1958), and Accent (In Sharp Contrast) or Product (In Sharp Contrast) (1968−1969) (the artist used both titles equally). The importance of this acquisition is heightened by the fact that these works belong to the relatively short period of minimalist tendencies in Lapajne’s oeuvre, when he worked as part of the so-called Neoconstructivists group. Accent (In Sharp Contrast) or Product (In Sharp Contrast) (1968−1969) is the largest of the four pieces, and was also in the worst condition upon arrival. Only nine of its original thirteen large wooden cuboids (each a wooden frame with polychrome chipboard panels nailed onto it) had survived, all damaged to varying degrees. The work done by the restorer Miladi Semion Makuc, who led the restoration work on the donated artworks (in collaboration with Vladimir Semion), was truly exceptional. When the restored and partly reconstructed Accent (In Sharp Contrast) or Product (In Sharp Contrast) was installed as part of the exhibition of the new acquisitions from Lapajne’s oeuvre in the central exhibition room of Moderna galerija’s right wing early in 2015, we saw materialized before us a tremendously impressive work of art. Twelve slim cuboids, attached with hinges on their short sides, can be installed in endless variations, while the final, thirteenth cuboid is hung obliquely on the wall as a black-and-red accent. The geometrical black-yellow-red snake meandered through the room like an exceptional embodiment of the environment principle, co-created by the viewers as they moved through the space, their view of the serpentine structure never finite or complete. While representing a short, transitory stage in Lapajne’s oeuvre, his minimalist works from the late 1960s tell us of the topical issues he explored at the time, articulating them in a shift away from the artistic gesture to impersonal production, in the direction of the horizon of sculpture as a ‘reified’ or ‘designed’ object, free of complex symbolism or of illusory humanist-anthropological content. To sum up, these works are objects that represent an important turning point in the history of modern sculpture in Slovenia.”