Ana Prvački

Slapstick and Seduction

“I am interested in grounding contemporary experiences, anxieties, and technologies in physical and bodily pleasures.”

Ana Prvački is a conceptual artist of Serbian-Romanian heritage whose cross-disciplinary practice spans performance, installations, portable sculptures, watercolors, videos, augmented reality, and idiosyncratic Instagram posts. Her backgrounds in music, theater, mask-work, and beekeeping inform her work, as does her keen interest in humor, language, and transcultural slips of the tongue. Her experimental approach incorporates scientific research, behavioral observations, and emotional affect into a strategy aimed at creating imaginative tools for the challenges of daily life.

In her artist statement, Prvački writes: “I commit to making my work as round as the Earth and my performances as compressed as water. I aim for pedagogical meme pollination and maximum viewer titillation.”

Hand Pollination Glove, 2018 ©Ana Prvački. Courtesy of the artist and de Young Museum, San Francisco
Bee Memorial, 80 million years to 21st century, 2018 ©Ana Prvački. Courtesy of the artist and de Young Museum, San Francisco
Tent, Quartet, Bows and Elbows, 2007-ongoing, Performance still ©Ana Prvački. Courtesy of the artist and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Massachusetts

Prvački has realized solo exhibitions and projects at the NTU CCA in Singapore; UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; and the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin. Her work has also been included in many international exhibitions, including the 2021 Art Encounters Biennial in Timisoara; the 2020 Bangkok Biennial; the 13th Gwangju Biennial; the 14th Istanbul Biennial; the 1st Singapore Biennial; and dOCUMENTA 13.

Her performances have been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Chicago Architecture Biennial, among others. In 2020 she was part of the Marina Abramović‘s SkyArt TV takeover. Prvački’s solo exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco won the 2020 Webby Award for its use of augmented reality and is recognized by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for its significant achievement. She is currently the first Digital Artist in Residence at Berlin’s Gropius Bau museum.

Multimask, 2020. Video still ©Ana Prvački. Courtesy of the artist, commissioned by 13th Gwangju Biennale

As a mentor, Prvački is seeking applicants who want to “explore, research, and experience the possibilities and limits of humor as a methodology and approach to critique, subversion, political action, joy, and connection.” Applicants are encouraged to apply with any type of project. “My invitation is open and the goals and the outcome of your work can range from sculpture to performance, works on paper, memes, apps, and even a Netflix series,” she says.

anaprvacki.com

Watch the video statement to find out more about what Prvački is looking for in applications:

Nominees

Sasha Bergstrom-Katz

On the Subject of Tests

Maastricht-based Sasha Bergstrom-Katz is an artist and researcher working at the intersections between the history of science, psychology, cognitive sciences, and perception studies. Her proposal stems from an ongoing inquiry into twentieth-century intelligence test kits (IQ tests) developed for wide application in classrooms, workplaces, and psychological institutions. She proposes to stage a filmed theatrical performance that explores the fears and fantasies that intelligence testing can produce in its subjects. Using modes of play, humor, and slapstick as well as prop- and set design, she will collaboratively work with actors and performers to access psychological states and deep-seated desires connected to ideas around testing and intelligence.

Aïda Gómez

Empatree

In her investigations into urban landscapes, artist Aïda Gómez looks at the traces left by trees felled by municipal authorities in city streets and parks. She proposes a series of guerilla interventions in public space that shift the focus to the tree stumps, easily overlooked but ubiquitous. Using the metaphor of tree stumps as amputees, and looking at the phenomenon of phantom limbs, Gómez asks whether a stump still attempts to perform functions such as absorbing CO2 out of the environment. She will interview arborists, botanists, gardeners, philosophers, and other experts to develop a variety of artistic interventions that will cast tree stumps as the main protagonists.

Mia Štark

An Anthology of Glances

Fascinated by absurd and humorous occurrences in everyday life, artist Mia Štark has decided to dedicate her work to their artistic investigation. Her proposal involves a performative piece inspired by the media-consumption habits of a specific age group in her native Croatia or, more precisely, her grandmother’s reliance on TV for information. The work meanders around the topic of how we watch, look at, listen to, and receive news of any kind. An Anthology of Glances is at once a comment as well as a proposition on how to consume media more carefully, packaged in the format of a short TV series and Public Service Announcements.

Mentee

An Anthology of Glances

Mia Štark

Mentors Edition 7

Daliso Chaponda

Daliso Chaponda

Humor and Storytelling

Alia Ibrahim

A Dance with Reality

Florentina Holzinger

Bodies in Action

Laura Huertas Millán

Reworlding Stories

Ana Prvački

Ana Prvački

Slapstick and Seduction

Rully Shabara

Rully Shabara

Your Voice Is Your Sound