Meta Grgurevič // Scraping for Gold
Exhibition Catalogue
By combining the exploration of the interdependence of elements and their assembly into a functional whole – with an emphasis on dialogic relationships – Scraping for Gold reveals the artist’s interest in human responsibility for the social and natural environment, not least by choosing gold, an indestructible element, no matter the difficulties of getting it into its elementary state. The installation consists of six objects, each representing one fragment of the artist’s experience and documenting her creative process in obtaining the gold. Hundreds of discarded mobile phones are revealed as modern-day gold deposits.
Only a few left (1)
The project Scraping for Gold was initiated by the artist in 2021. In it, she explores the capitalist mode of production, in which money is considered the driving force, and which is also marked by the enormous amount of waste generated in the course of everyday life. Through a process carried out in collaboration with the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, she extracted a grain of gold from two hundred discarded mobile phones. This tiny fragment of gold became the central object of a six-part installation that opens up questions of recycling, the ethics of labour processes, the extraction of precious materials, and the valuation of artistic work.
Published by: Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana/Cukrarna Gallery
Represented by: Blaž Peršin
Cukrarna Gallery represented by: Alenka Gregorič
Editor and exhibition curator: Alenka Trebušak
Text: Rye Holmboe
Conversation with the artist: Alenka Trebušak
Slovenian translation: Marjana Karer
Slovenian language editing: Katja Paladin
English language editing: Ana Čavić
Installation view photos: Blaž Gutman/MGML
Design and layout: Ajdin Bašić
Printed by: Cicero d.o.o., Ljubljana
Print run: 300
Number of pages: 104
September 2022