Approved: 12.12.2018

Robert Luzar

Artist, Lecturer / academic, Researcher, Writer

Approved: 12.12.2018

I am an artist, writer and educator living in Bristol, UK.

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    Artist Statement

    I am an artist, writer and educator living in Bristol, UK.

    Born in Slovenia, raised in Canada, and having lived in the UK for over a decade, my life has been shaped by experiences of change in identity, place, and ideology.

    The works I present use unconventional drawings, painting, live-art, performance, video, telematic works, the Web, and projection technology. Crossing these disciplines come from an interest in ‘change’ as an event, an event that involves 'tracing' structural change, politically and existentially.

    Drawing as 'point', a spirit of refusal, of withdrawing, is one of the present ways I approach the event.

    I hold a PhD from Central Saint Martins. I exhibit globally in live-art events, Web-based projects, museums and galleries, such as Palazzo Loredan Venice (IT), Torrance Art Museum (USA), Talbot Rice Gallery (UK), DRAWinternational (FR), Katzman Contemporary (CA), Künstlerhaus Dortmund (DE), and CUMT Institute (China). His writings on art, culture and philosophy are published in books and journals such as Nancy and Visual Culture (Edinburgh University Press 2016), Theatre and Performance Design (Routledge 2017), and Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice (Intellect 2019).

    I am interested in how works work ‘trace’ different conditions of change as an 'event'. Put plainly, this means tracing where, when, and how persons, subjects and things can come together, live, insist, pass away––and still persist.

    With viewers I try to trace ‘conditions’ that reflect elements and behaviours of the world as both economically abstract and socially concrete. The abstractions appear as points, lines, planes, and shadows; the concretions posed by the body as both subjective and of assembly, space, the present, gravity, action, decision. The abstractions reflect the logic of a worldview, or ideology, that infects and implicates someone in concrete experiences.

    My writings are used to keep working through ideologies of work, labour and truth. Writing is used not to theoretically explain but, rather, ‘think’ in the spirit of drawing: the Primi Penseri, or ‘first thoughts’ of the artist, claimed since the Renaissance. The psychoanalytic method of working through is employed to write as a way of analysing preconditions that cut across aesthetics, politics, ethics and existence.

    A few comments.

    I prefer to think of the works as events that go beyond the I, of the liberal-economic ‘me first’ position. Instead, the works take place ‘in you more than you alone’. Works invite everyone to work through drives that exceed the author.

    Moreover, the works do come out of conditions and ideas deeply lived. For me ‘change’ has meant living through social and economic struggle, work, debt, trauma and dispossession… and, above all, making ‘existence’ a work of risk, joyful and incalculable surprise. Immigration, two lost homes, displacement from family and community, a single-parent upbringing: these are some personal examples of the experiences genealogically shaping the practice.

     

     

    CV & Education

    2017 Fellow of The Higher Education Academy

    2013  PhD, Central Saint Martins, UAL, UK

    2005  MA, Chelsea College of Art & Design, UAL, UK

    2002  BFA, York University, CA

    Teaching Posts

    2015 -    Senior Lecturer in Fine Art

                   Bath Spa University, UK

    2014       Visiting Lecturer, Fine Art

                   Concordia University, CA

    2011-13  Lecturer in Fine Art, part-time

                   Staffordshire University, UK

    2010-13  Lecturer in Fine Art, part-time

                   Central Saint Martins, UAL, UK

    Collections

    Lucio Benetton Foundation

    Memberships

    2015 -     Editorial Board member

                   Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice (Intellect Press)

    2015-17  Associate Artist

                   44AD Artspace (Bath, UK)

    2015       Member of the Board

                   FADO performance art centre (Toronto, CA)

    2007-13  Associate Artist, Live-Work Scheme Recipient

                   Bow Arts Trust (London, UK)

     

    Exhibitions (Solo, Group), Residencies, Live-Art Events

    2020

    Remembering Sisyphus (Decameron-19 / group exhibition, Sunaparanta Goa Centre For The Arts, India)

    Centre of Gravity (site-specific project, Gardiner Haskins, Bristol, UK)

    On Edge (online performance and symposium, Material Performance research group, Bath Spa University, with Live Art Development Agency, UK)

    Visions In The Nunnery (performance / group exhibition, Nunnery Gallery, London, UK)

    Art Technician Emergeny Art Fund (Web-based fundraiser event)

    Decameron-19 (collective online project and public space interventions)

    Choose Art – Give Light To Refugees (online exhibition and auction, Drawing Projects UK)

    TAPS Now (group exhibition, Kosar Contemporary / Artist Project Space, Bristol, UK)

    2019

     

    Restless Linings (group exhibition, Kosar Contemporary, Bristol, UK)

    Roja Art Lab (residency, Roja, Latvia)

    Dull (group exhibition, Sightlines Projects, Fringe Arts Bath, Bath UK)

    Reverse (performance, Nunu Theatre and LAPER, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK)

    Elsewhere is here : Anderswo ist hier II (group exhibition, Centerspace, Bristol, UK)

    Share of A Future (group exhibition, CUMT Institute, Beijing, China)

    2018

     LAPER Book Launch (performance, LAPER, Modern Art Oxford, UK)

     Elsewhere is here : Anderswo ist hier (group exhibition, Turba Gallery, Hanover, DE)

     In Who’s Eyes (performance with Martina Schmucker, Beaconsfield Gallery, UK)

     Live (groug exhibition, Fringe Arts Bath, UK)

     Squash & Stretch (performance, LAPER, Oxford Brookes University, UK)

     Zhuangzi & The Butterfly (festival/performance, Tel-Aviv University, Israel)

     Resting, Walking, Place-making (performance, Victoria Stanton / McGill University, CA)

     Demonstration 1 (live performance, University of Wolverhampton, UK)

     Restless Linings, Acts / Re-Acts 5, (group exhibition, Wimbledon Space, UK)

    2017

    Trace, Performance, Gesture (group exhibition, Herbert Read Gallery, UCA, UK)

    Out of the Bush Garden: Imago Mundi (Palazzo Loredan Venice, publication & touring exhibition, Lucio Benetton Foundation, IT)

    Elastic (performance art festival, Oxford, UK)

    Embodied Cartographies (live-art event/group exhibition, curated by Fay Stevens, Fringe Arts Bath, UK)

    DRAWinternational (residency, Caylus, FR)

    Find Another Bath (RUH Bath, UK)

    Accent (group exhibition, 44AD, Bath, UK)

    2016

    Visions in The Nunnery (group exhibition, Nunnery Gallery, London, UK)

    Skelf (online gallery project, UK)

    Line, Point, Plane: Minimalism in Architecture 2 (group exhibition, Nunnery Gallery, London, UK)

    Find Another Bath (publication & group exhibition, 44AD, Bath, UK)

    QPark (group exhibition, Cavendish Square, London, UK)

    Minimalism and Architecture (Fringe Arts Bath, UK)

    Drawing Upon Experience (Corsham Court, Bath Spa University, UK)

    Duration & Dialogue (live-art event, Katzmann Contemporary, CA)

    Draw To Perform 3 (live-art symposium, OCAD University, CA)

    The Waiting Room (group exhibition, 44AD, Bath, UK)

    2015

    Legs, Too (live-art event, FADO, Toronto, CA)

    DRAWInternational A.I.R Residency (residency, Caylus, FR)

    Unquiet D… (collaborative live-event with Ellen Moffat, G Gallery, Toronto, CA)

    2014

    Get Noticed (group exhibition, Red Head Gallery, Toronto, CA)

    In Friendship, Mit Gelassenheit (collaborative live event with Timo Kube, Dortmund Künstlerhaus, Dortmund, DE)

    Life and Limb (Group exhibition and art prize, Orillia Museum of Art and History, Orillia, Ontario, CA)

    2013

    Draw to Perform (Performance, Performance Space, London, UK)

    Obscured Exchange (Group exhibition, APT Gallery, London, UK)

    The Mark (Group exhibition, Harrington Mills Studios, Nottingham, UK)

    [ • ] Outside (Solo exhibition, Kingsgate Gallery, London, UK)

    2012

    re Site (after R.M.) (Collaborative performance with Martina Schmücker, V22, London, UK)

    Pinching Until Skin Deep (Solo performance, Roves and Roams/WAM Festival, Reading, UK)

     Polemically Small (Group Exhibition, Orleans House Gallery, Richmond, UK).

    Insisting Over Skin, Drawing After Surface (Co-exhibition with Martin Lewis, Kingsgate Gallery, London, UK)

    Level (Group Exhibition, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, UK)

    Sensingsite (performance and talk, initiated by Susan Trangmar, Duncan White and Steven Ball, Parasol Unit, London, UK)

    2011

    Through a Glass Lightly (Group exhibition, GoCart Gallery, Visby, SWE)

    Acoustic Sessions (performance, Angus Hughes Gallery, London, UK)

    London International (Group exhibition, curated by Edward Lucie Smith, KCCC, Klaipeda, LTU)

    Connection Point London (Group Exhibition, curated by Max Presneill & Edward Lucie Smith, Nunnery Gallery, London, UK)

    Creekside Open (Art prize & exhibition, curated by Phyllida Barlow, APT Gallery, London, UK)

    THE FUTURE CAN WAIT presents: Polemically Small (Group exhibition, curated by Zavier Ellis, Edward Lucie Smith, Max Prisneill & Simon Rumley, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, California, USA)

    Sisyphus Happy (Exhibition with Rachel Maclean, Backlit Gallery, Nottingham, UK)

    2010

    Polemically Small (Group exhibition, curated by Edward Lucie Smith, Charlie Smith Gallery, London, UK)

    Non-Negotiable (Exhibition with Carali McCall, Byam Shaw School of Art Exhibition Space, London, UK)

    Can You Hear It (Group exhibition, Nunnery Gallery, curated by Franko B, London, UK)

    Approximations to... (Solo exhibition, Harrington Mills Studios, Nottingham, UK)

    Bat Pack (Group Exhibition, Mile End Arts Pavilion, London, UK)

    2009

    Little Drawings Exhibition (Group exhibition, Glasgow, UK)

    Making Sense-Colloquium (Commission – performance, artist-in-residence, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK)

    Kiss of a Lifetime (Performance, Bearspace/Frog Morris, London, UK)

    Drawn-In (Group Exhibition, Sidcot Arts Centre, Somerset, UK)

    Mark Making (Group Exhibition, Artlink, Hull, UK)

    P1 Launch (Group exhibition, Bow Arts Trust, London, UK)

    Olympic Visions (performance-drawing, Nunnery Gallery, London, UK)

    Openended (Site Specific-Group Exhibition, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK)

    The Open West (Short-listed art prize/exhibition, Summerfield Gallery, Cheltenham, UK)

    2008

    Take it as Read (group exhibition, Stroud House Gallery, Stroud, UK)

    Human Resources (performance, Wharf Road Project/V22, London, UK)

    Scene in the Making (group/performance, Concrete & Glass Festival, London, UK)

    The Continuous Line (group exhibition, Head Space Gallery, Liverpool, UK)

    Censored (group event/video/performance, Star & Shadow Cinema, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK)

    SEE-ME (Lee Cambell Projects: BATS Open Studios (Bow Arts Trust, London, UK).

    Camberwell Arts Festival 2008 (site specific installation, Camberwell Arts/South London Gallery, London, UK)

    Illuminators  (site specific installation, Koltsovo International Airport, Yekatarinburg, RUS)

    Play on Words (performance-group, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK)

    Dance For Screen (Video Art group show, South Hill Park/Digital Media Centre, Bracknell, UK)

    Sacred (group exhibition, Novas Gallery / Novas Contemporary Urban Centre, London, UK)

    2007

    Visual Deflections (Video Art screening, The Visual Deflections, London, UK)

    Gallery Yujiro's 1st Ikkyou Tanjoubi (Performance/collaborative, Gallery Yujiro, London, UK)

    Mobile Box (Solo performance, Gothenburg Biennial, Gothenburg, SWE)

    Deviant Art Festival (performance/group exhibition, Trollhatten, SWE)

    Camberwell Arts Festival  (Solo performance, Camberwell Arts/South London Gallery, London, UK)

    Visions at the Nunnery  (Nunnery Gallery – group exhibition, London, UK)

    Art-in-process (group exhibition, Canary Buoy Wharf, London, UK)

    Anonymous Drawings  (group exhibition, Blutenweiss, Berlin, DE)

    2006

    Made in Video (International Video Art Festival, Copenhagen, DNK)

    Rojaraku (residency, International Art Laboratory, Roja, LV)

    Territoires Electroniques (performance, Electronic Music and Art Festival, Aix En Provence, FRA)

    2005

    Master of Arts Show (Chelsea College of Art & Design, London, UK)

    Open Screenings (Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK)

    Swinging (curated by Robert Luzar, Nolia’s Gallery @ The Thomas A. Becket, London, UK)

    Big Makes Me Feel Good (Group exhibition, Triangle Space, Chelsea College of Art &   Design, London, UK)

    36 Craven Street (group exhibition, Benjamin Franklin House, 36 Craven Street, London, UK)

    2001

    Acts of Inscription (solo exhibition, The Gallery, Center for Fine Arts, York University, Toronto, Canada)

    2000

    Technities (solo exhibition, The Project Space, University of Northumbria, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK)

    All You Can Eat Buffet (group exhibition, The Eleanor Winters Gallery, York University, CA)

     

    Publications/writings:

    Flavel, S., and Luzar, R. (2019) ‘Tracing The Dao: Reflections on the application of Daoist theory of action in contemporary drawing practice’, Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice, Vol 4, Issue 1

    Luzar, R. (2018) ‘Performative Points: Tracing Desire’, in Ed Pien, La Poste, a publication accompanying the exhibition.

    Luzar, R. (2017) ‘Rethinking The Graphic Trace in Performative Drawing’, Theatre and Performance Design, 3:1-2, 50-67, DOI: 10.1080/23322551.2017.1327559.

    'Turning Around The Written Mark, Opening From A Weight of Thought', in Nancy & Visual Culture, C. Giunta & A. Janus eds. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.

     

    ‘Multiple Signatures of Subtraction’, article published in Mnemoscape Magazine, The Anarchival Impulse, issue 1, Autumn 2014  –  http://www.mnemoscape.org/

     

    Drawing Upon Multiplicity: Mark, Body and A Trace of Thought, doctoral thesis, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, 2013  –  http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/6182/

     

    Exchanging ‘x’, an article commissioned for the exhibition and publication Exchange, at APT Gallery, London, 2013

     

    'A Trace From A Point... (without Reference)', Desearch, Issue 2, Summer, 2012 –

    http://www.desearch.co.uk/

     

    'Remarking The Here Over Now', Cultural Policy, Criticism & Management Research, Issue 6, Autumn, 2012

    http://culturalpolicyjournal.org/

    https://www.academia.edu/13114349/Remarking_the_here_over_now

     

    'Moments of Repetition' (a peer review of artist Jill Townsley), in Artfractures Quarterly, Summer 2010.

     

    'A Note From A Viewer' (a review of artist Timo Kube), published for the exhibition This, at Galerie Wilma Tolgsdorf