Exhibition Dates: November 1 – 29, 2008
Location: Arthur Roger Gallery, 432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 1, 6– 8 pm
Gallery Hours: Monday– Saturday 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Contact Info: 504.522.1999. www.arthurrogergallery.com

The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of recent sculpture installations by Srdjan Loncar. The exhibition will be on view at the Arthur Roger Gallery, 432 Julia Street from November 1st – 29th, 2008. Mr. Loncar will be in attendance at the opening reception hosted by the gallery on Saturday, November 1st, from 6 to 8 pm in conjunction with the opening night of Prospect.1.

In two separate exhibitions, one at the Arthur Roger Gallery and the other at the U.S. Mint, Srdjan Loncar weaves together themes of value, perception, and illusion. In his work entitled, Value, featured at the U.S. Mint, Loncar creates an interactive performance piece in which bankers facilitate the sales of golden suitcases of money with interested investors. Buyers are encouraged to invest and to take home their new-found fortune. The money, stored in a large pile inside of a vault, is crafted from wooden blocks and covered with digital images of paper currency.

Loncar carries over this value theme into his installation at the Arthur Roger Gallery. Unlike the pile of money at the U.S. Mint, Loncar constructs metal cubes and covers them with the same digital images used for the money featured in Value. The value of each cube of money, based on actual currency, would be worth $49,200; however Loncar suggests that “the aesthetic of the cube dictates it worth.” The ten cubes featured in this exhibition create an atmosphere similar to a mausoleum as they lead up to Burning Hummer, a toy car engulfed in flames constructed from images of oil well fires in Iraq. Together Burning Hummer with its overpowering flames and the tombstone-like money cubes communicate the dangers of consumerism for both the wealthy and the middle class.

Loncar’s desire to address “value” stems from being forced to think more like a financial institution as he makes money. “I was thinking about the word value,” says Loncar, “what we value, the value of the art, the value put on this piece, the value of the materials used to make the piece…” Ironically, Loncar’s installations also relate to current financial crisis.

Born in Croatia in 1971, New Orleans-based artist Srdjan Loncar earned an MFA in sculpture from the University of New Orleans in 2003. The Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California awarded Loncar a Kala residency award provided by the Alliance of Artists’ Communities and the Irvine Foundation for artists affected by Hurricane Katrina. There was a major installation of Srdjan Loncar’s work at New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center in 2005.

For additional information contact the gallery at 504.522.1999 or visit our web site www.arthurrogergallery.com.