If we are sensitive enough, if we understand that a sculpturally treated body or various forms of sculptural corporality can be perceived as the most comprehensive expressions of the artistic attitude to reality, then precisely the sculpturally shaped body is the strongest plastic manifestation of the artist’s conception of being. The body and its activity, i.e. corporality, build diverse schemes that, through image representations and by adding sensory sensations, inform the subject again and again about his or her position in society and culture. At the level of artistic narration or artistic language or art-historical endowments and interpretations, the body develops through and with the help of different variously extensible contexts or paradigms – one of these or one of such is precisely the corporality. It is also particularly characteristic of contemporary sculptural creation that a sculpture is the space of the strongest plastic organization, thus the spatially conceived sculptural reality. When the various forms of corporality and the space formed by sculptural works are united, forms are created that are massive, monumental or light, transparent, floating, that is, materially open and delicate, as a line is delicate, that essential element of art in general. In the sculptural works of the academy-trained sculptor Tea Curk Sorta, the line becomes a sculptural element that is constantly repeated, escalated in various forms, which as a spatial drawing or “sculptural” graphic element builds sculptures or forms translucent sculptural artefacts that even oscillate in installation spaces, and the sculptor builds them with great care to the placement of sculptures. The reciprocity of the plastic message is being developed – the corporality of the sculpture and the content as a situation in which a certain sculptural work (in this case mainly the body) is located in a given installation. And when her sculptural works come to life in space, we somehow realize that a sculpture is not merely an external form, that is, a shape, but an internal structure or substance. Their relationship is time and again a special result of enjoyment, it is a pleasure in the sculptural journey, in the journey of observing the external and internal parts of the work of art itself. At the exhibition in the Veselov vrt Gallery, the artist places (draws) the human body in the space. More precisely: her artwork is to follow the body, all its possible movements, catchable or depictable, all those movements that remain only a premonition or thought, something that is already taken away from the past and is still written in the future. Thus, the sculpture is a set of many strokes, it is a line that multiplies in small movements and at the same time in the density of a multitude of lines. Tea’s sculptures confirm the thought by Milan Butina (Prvine likovne prakse. Ljubljana: Debora, 1997, 244): “The manner of performing strokes and forming gestures is intimately connected to the body, which is guided and directed by both emotional and spiritual tension and strength. Therefore, every stroke in drawing and every movement in modelling are, on the one hand, filled with emotional charge, and on the other hand, they are disciplined by reason to become capable of conscious design.” In the discourse related to corporality, the relationship between the movement of bodies and spatial organization and the relationship between various aspects of artistic images dictated by the poetics of an individual author are often essential. Thus, for example, formal analysis of gestures usually involves their placement in time and space and their classification according to whether the gestures are actually performed or only indicated by different parts of the body, in different planes and in different ways. Transfers and relationships between bodies allow for artistic diversity and an expressive play between the partiality and integrity of bodies, thus shaping the dynamics of their corporality. In this regard, the idea arises that the artist transforms the world into his or her creative image by lending his or her body to the world, which is an intertwinement of vision and movement. In this manner, the problem is exposed as a relationship between the psyche and the body, as a psychosomatic question, which Freud called conversion and defined as the transformation of mental contents into bodily symptoms. The corporal exterior in artistic practice therefore participates mainly in the task of presentation. The latter is formed through dimensions and concepts in which the relationships between bodies and their dynamic (elemental) corporality and the spaces (understood most broadly, also as image carriers) are important, in which bodies and corporality are formed and expressed externally, i.e. into the space of the spectator’s world. Thus, Tea Curk Sorta in her artistic poetics often goes beyond this purely aesthetic element and ensures that the body and corporality are also the bearers of social, political and socio-economic messages in a given time and space.
Če smo dovolj rahločutni, če razumemo, da lahko kiparsko obravnavano telo oziroma različne oblike kiparskih telesnosti dojemamo kot najcelovitejše izpovedi umetniškega odnosa do realnosti, potem je prav kiparsko oblikovano telo najmočnejša plastična manifestacija umetnikovega pojmovanja bivanja. Telo in njegova aktivnost, tj. telesnost, gradita raznolike sheme, ki skozi slikovne predstave in z dodajanjem čutnih senzacij subjekt vedno znova informirajo o njegovem položaju v družbi in kulturi. Na ravni likovne pripovedi ali likovnega jezika oziroma umetnostnozgodovinskih danosti ter interpretacij se telo razvija skozi in s pomočjo najrazličnejših raznoliko raztegljivih kontekstov ali paradigem – eden od teh ali ena takšnih je prav telesnost. Za sodobno kiparsko ustvarjanje je še posebej značilno tudi to, da je skulptura prostor najmočnejše plastične organizacije, torej prostorsko pojmovana kiparska realnost. Ko se združijo raznovrstne oblike telesnosti in prostor, ki ga tvorijo kiparska dela, nastanejo forme, ki so masivne, monumentalne ali lahke, transparentne, lebdeče, torej snovno razprte in nežne, kot je nežna črta, tisti bistveni element umetnosti sploh. V kiparskih delih akademske kiparske Tee Curk Sorta črta postane kiparski element, ki se nenehno ponavlja, stopnjuje v najraznovrstnejših oblikah, ki kot prostorska risba ali »kiparsko« grafični element gradi skulpture oziroma oblikuje prosojne kiparske artefakte, ki celo nihajo v postavitvenih prostorih in kiparka jih gradi z veliko pazljivostjo do postavitve skulptur. Razvija se vzajemnost plastičnega sporočila – telesnosti skulpture in vsebine kot situacije, v kateri se določeno kiparsko delo (v tem primeru predvsem telo) – v dani postavitvi nahaja. In ko njena kiparska dela zaživijo v prostoru, se nekako zavemo, da je skulptura ne samo zunanja forma, torej oblika, temveč notranja struktura ali substanca. Njuno razmerje je vedno znova poseben rezultat uživanja, je užitek v kiparskem potovanju, v potovanju gledanja zunanjih in notranjih delov likovnega dela samega. Na razstavi v Galeriji Veselov vrt umetnica v prostor umesti (vriše) človeško telo. Natančneje: njeno likovno delo je sledenje telesu, vsem njegovim morebitnim gibom, ulovljivim ali upodobljivim, vsem tistim gibom, ki ostanejo le slutnja ali misel, nekaj, kar je že odvzeto preteklosti in še vedno zapisano v prihodnosti. Tako je skulptura skupek številnih potez, je linija, ki se množi v majhnih premikih in hkrati zgoščenosti mnoštva linij. Teine skulpture potrjujejo misel Milana Butine (Prvine likovne prakse. Ljubljana: Debora, 1997, 244): »Način izvajanja potez in oblikovanja kretenj je intimno povezan s telesom, ki ga vodita in usmerjata tako čustvena kakor duhovna napetost in moč. Zato sta vsaka poteza pri risanju ter vsak gib pri modeliranju po eni strani nabita s čustvenim nabojem, po drugi pa ju disciplinira razum, da postaneta sposobna zavestnega oblikovanja.« V diskurzu, vezanem na telesnost, sta pogosto bistvenega pomena razmerje med gibanjem teles in prostorsko organizacijo ter razmerje med različnimi aspekti likovnih podob, ki jih narekuje poetika posameznega avtorja. Tako na primer formalna analiza gest običajno obsega njihovo umestitev v čas in prostor ter razvrstitev glede na to, ali so kretnje dejansko izvedene ali pa le nakazane z različnimi deli telesa, v različnih ravninah in na različne načine. Transferji in razmerja med telesi omogočajo likovno raznolikost in izrazno igro med parcialnostjo in celovitostjo teles, s čimer oblikujejo dinamiko njihove telesnosti. V zvezi s tem se poraja misel, da umetnik spreminja svet v svojo ustvarjalno podobo tako, da svetu posoja svoje telo, ki je preplet vizije in gibanja. Na tak način se problem izpostavi kot odnos med psiho in telesom, kot psihosomatsko vprašanje, ki ga je Freud imenoval konverzija ter definiral kot spreminjanje duševnih vsebin v telesne simptome. Telesna zunanjost v likovni praksi torej sodeluje predvsem pri nalogi prezentacije. Ta se oblikuje skozi dimenzije in koncepte, pri katerih so pomembni odnosi med telesi in njihovo dinamično (elementarno) telesnostjo ter prostori (razumljenimi najširše, tudi kot nosilci podob), v katerih se telesa in telesnost izoblikujejo ter izražajo navzven, tj. v prostor gledalčevega sveta. Tako Tea Curk Sorta v svojih likovnih poetikah pogosto presega ta izključno estetski element in poskrbi, da sta telo in telesnost tudi nosilca socialne, politične in družbenoekonomske sporočilnosti v nekem času in prostoru.
Sarival Sosič