From the very beginning, the art practice of the duo Small but dangers (SBD) has been based on the interlacement of two modes of production: on the one hand, the creation of new works and, on the other, the collection of found objects, which the artists treat in the same way as created works. The starting point of this practice is a critical stance towards the ideology of the new since the artists believe that everything new comes as a reaction to something that already exists. This means that in every new thing, the continuity of the old is also revealed.

Their entire artistic oeuvre is built on this concept. In their exhibitions, they present new works alongside old ones, whereas the exhibitions themselves also relate to each other, at least in part. The show at hand is a continuation of the exhibition Fragments, Chips, and Residues from 2022 (Centre and Gallery P74, Ljubljana), which began a new cycle. In contrast to the previous one, which presented works created in dialogue with the gallery space, the focus of the new series is on found objects.

As the title of the exhibition suggests (gleaning = searching, collecting remains; casual, unsystematic collecting), the SBD collection of found objects is not created according to a predetermined concept, as the artists follow undefined aesthetic criteria when deciding what to and what not to include. Nonetheless, the collection is linked by a (not entirely disparate) common thread – the objects that make up the collection mostly represent traces of civilisation in one form or another and thus also traces of various kinds of human control over nature, the order of social structures, the course of everyday life and ideologies of all kinds, because the artists believe that the ideas of those who shape this material are imprinted in the material. They are therefore the remains of the human presence in the world, both literally and figuratively.

By collecting these remains and placing them in the gallery in new constellations – as they found them, framed, on plinths, as part of assembled artefact, etc. – the artists manipulate the traces of civilisation. For they still contain a fragment of the whole, like a vague premonition that can convey nothing definite, unambiguous, no concrete content, but which, freed and emptied of everything tangible, opens up a space for new thoughts and ideas. Each found object from the SBD collection, which is placed in different constellations within the gallery space, thus acts as a kind of lever that unbalances entrenched ideas of a lost whole and enables the creation of new worlds of thought that persist from the past to the present and into the future. And the other way around.

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Small but dangers (SBD) are Simon Hudolin - Salči and Mateja Rojc. They never present their work individually, but exclusively as part of SBD. In 2004 and 2005, they graduated from the Arthouse College of Visual Arts in Ljubljana. In 2015, Simon Hudolin also completed a master’s degree at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. The SBD duo has presented their work in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad, as well as at various international contemporary art fairs. They have received several awards and recognitions, including the OHO Group Award 2017 and the Best Artist Book Award in Slovenia 2019–2022.
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