Curated by Ingrid Chu and Savannah Gorton

DIVISION/S (2009) is a newly commissioned work for Forever & Today. Comprised of a multi-colored patchwork curtain that incorporates the words, “DIVISION ST,” it references the architectural framework of the building along with its location between New York’s Lower East Side and Chinatown.

Shrouded from view is the 13-minute video Abbazia Kino (2000), focusing on the former location of a Viennese cinema, known as the Abbazia, frequented by the artist as a child. As his initial exposure to popular images of Asian culture, the cinema played martial arts films exclusively, including those with Bruce Lee. Operating until the mid-1980s, it was located in Vienna’s red light district along a street that still divides the central area from the immigrant and working class neighborhoods. Shot in a straightforward documentary style, the video maps Lulic’s childhood route to the cinema, with short inserts of filmic moments and photographs featuring Bruce Lee juxtaposed with images of the current manifestation of the theater, now a peep show.

Transposed to the present time for this exhibition at Forever & Today, Lulic brackets his past and current circumstances, geographically mapping and metaphorically linking the existence of “division streets” that permeate cities worldwide.

Highlighting the architectural framework of social and political constructions, Lulic provides temporary sites where new relationships form and perceived differences collapse. Lulic confronts how ideological structures take shape through the built environment, at times referencing lesser known, if no less historically significant figures that have some bearing on these codified spaces. In so doing, Lulic imparts a sense of how dividing lines continue to be drawn—and crossed over—presenting them in a manner that does not idealize as much as reinforce their subjective potential.

MARKO LULIC (b.1972, Vienna, Austria) is a Vienna-based artist, whose work has been shown internationally, including solo and group exhibitions, special projects, public commissions, publications, and screenings, through such venues as the Austrian Cultural Forum, New York; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt; MAK Center for Art & Architecture at the Schindler House, Los Angeles; Neue Kunst Halle, St. Gallen; Secession, Vienna; Office for Contemporary Art, Oslo; and the Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York. He is the recipient of numerous awards and has been featured in Artforum.com, frieze, and Kunstforum International among other publications. His most recent catalogue, Ich War Die Putzfrau Am Bauhuas/I Was the Cleaning Lady at the Bauhaus was published by Snoeck in 2008.