The Icon / The Star
In The Icon/The Star, Slovenian artist Bojan Radovič examines how the five-pointed star as a revolutionary symbol is appropriated and re-used in a contemporary globalised world. With the fall of the Berlin wall and the demise of communism in Europe, the red star is progressively emptied of its ‘original’ meaning. Today, as time passes, the star symbol simply floats around different countries and brands, in various advertising and consumer contexts. Radovič points to this shifting of the meaning of the star as the consequence of the capitalist process of re-branding, which slowly and steadily divests the red star of its historical and revolutionary power. Rather than simply observing this phenomenon, the artist highlights a revolutionary symbol that is caught in the process of being assimilated into the easy consumerist world of capitalism and emptied of its past socialism. Radovič is also concerned with how the act of photographing the star in such contexts prompts new ways of seeing the image and thinking about its meaning. Unfettered from its more indexical meaning, the red star signifies things other than itself, as part of a wider system of signs.
Artist Profile(s)
Bojan Radovič
Born in 1960 in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, where he still lives and works, Radovič graduated from the WGIHE, Faculty of Art & Design in Swansea, Wales. In addition to his own work as a photographer, Bojan Radovič has been a leading force in Slovenian photography world, opening the House of Photography gallery and involved in curation and publishing internationally. Radovič’s work asks penetrating questions of contemporary society and art, with carefully considered concepts and a cool eye untrammelled by preconceptions.