Platform

Platform is a readymade object with graphic interventions, a paperback copy of Michel Houellebecq’s novel Platform. Following the storyline, the main character Michael introduces us to different people who work in various sectors; we receive data about the time they spend at work, he tells us about their social and class background, working conditions and professional ambitions. Throughout the book, Fokus Grupa conceals the principal narrative, leaving only information about work. The method used, itself a laborious process of covering text with graphite within the span of four months, was at the same time exhausting and meditative, borrowed from a Croatian avant-garde artist Julije Knifer whose work dealt with the timelessness and abatement of progress. In an old interview Knifer gave some time before his death, he speaks about how he has acquired enough graphite to last him until the end of his life, thus, in a way, measuring time in sequences of graphite material.

Details

technical info: altered ready-made, artist-book / unique / perfect bound / paperback / 362 pages / graphite on paper / 2014
exhibition view: A Taste for Work (opens in a new tab), ŠKUC Gallery, Ljubljana
photo credits: Dejan Habicht