Nataša Berk: Already chewed over countless times

Indents and knots, twists and turns, a strange floating mass that resembles a brain. While the object of fascination that is captured in the photograph could be placed in the tradition of abstract sculpture and formalism, its mundanity and banality give us a jolt in the course of aesthetic appraisal, challenging and perhaps even making us laugh.

If it was already pop art that combined high with the low and art with consumerism, the artist is not so much interested in chewing gum as a product that can be bought at every newsagent’s, but as a material that found its way between the gaps of teeth. Chewing, this simple relaxing activity or a small subversion in formal contexts, unconsciously creates tiny abstract sculptures between our teeth, overlooked and discarded. 
These inadvertent products have been the subject of the artist's wonder and exploration for many years. She alienates the familiar object, magnifying it in its already used version, with visible traces of the human and the corporeal. But also the personal – we gaze at impressions of teeth and oral cavity, saliva residues, a document of the inside of the body. This organicity can also arouse revulsion: for the most part, we refrain from looking at what we have chewed; it is something that belongs to the interior of the body. Do we chew gum like we chew on food for thought? 

Nataša Berk's unique portrait recognises the value of the banal and, with photographic magnification, elevates the mundane, stops us in our tracks, alerting us to the fact that a uniqueness and a strange attraction can be found in these unplanned, spontaneous, unusual, bizarre and, some might say, disgusting forms.

 

Nataša Berk (1978) is a diverse and versatile contemporary artist. She operates/works in the broader field of contemporary culture, also through assuming various identities. Her work cannot be categorized or framed within any specific genre. The sharpness of her thoughts is hidden behind the naivety of a child's perception of the world. She describes herself as an ironic-provocative avant-gardist of existentialism with a tangible abstract instinct.

Iza Pevec (1987) graduated in Art History and Comparative Literature. A long-time writer on art and culture, she contributed to Radio Študent, and currently works for Radio Slovenia - Ars programme, also collaborating with the Fotografija magazine. She occasionally curates and has finished training at the School for Curatorial Practice and Critical Writing at the Institute for Contemporary Art SCCA Ljubljana.