Zoran Poznič

The window is one of the oldest motifs in the history of art. For centuries, it represented an opening onto the world, a metaphor for vision and a promise that reality might be understood. Alberti conceived of the painting as an open window through which the world could be observed. Today, however, the question appears to have shifted. We no longer ask only what we are looking at. We ask who directs our gaze – and why.

We live in an age surrounded by countless windows. The screens of phones and computers, surveillance cameras, social networks and algorithms have become the new architecture of everyday life. Never before have we had so many opportunities to look. Never before have we ourselves been so extensively watched. Never before has our attention been shaped by so many external forces.

In a world where images circulate faster than we can comprehend them, the gaze becomes a commodity. Attention has become currency. Intimacy, content. Privacy, a matter of negotiation. We willingly disclose our lives, while becoming ever less aware of who determines the frames through which we observe others and ourselves.

In contemporary art, the motif of the window therefore transcends its material manifestation. It is no longer merely a symbol of openness and connection. It may also become an instrument of surveillance, exclusion and manipulation. It marks a boundary between inside and outside, proximity and alienation, freedom and exposure. The question is no longer whether we look, but how we look – and what we are prepared to overlook.

The exhibition The Window – A Motif in Contemporary Art opens a space in which to reflect on these contradictions. The artworks explore the gaze as a form of relationship, power and responsibility. They speak of presence and absence, of the fragmented experience of space, of the longing for closeness and the fear of disclosure. Above all, they remind us that the gaze is never neutral. It always reveals something about the world. And it always reveals something about ourselves.

Perhaps one of the greatest illusions of our time is the belief that more images necessarily bring greater understanding. Yet an abundance of information does not amount to depth of insight. On the contrary: amid the flood of images, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish the essential from the trivial, reality from construction, empathy from voyeurism.

This is precisely why art remains indispensable. Not because it offers answers, but because it slows the gaze. Because it compels us to pause. To remain with the discomfort of questions. To challenge the apparent self-evidence of the images that surround us.

Once again, the Kranj International Festival of Fine Arts establishes a meeting ground for diverse artistic poetics, generations and creative approaches. At a time dominated by instant reactions and simplified interpretations, the exhibition makes room for complexity. For multiplicity. For the possibility of seeing the world differently.

We can open a window in order to understand others. Or we can use it to reinforce our own assumptions and prejudices. Perhaps this is precisely why the question posed by this year’s exhibition is so urgent: not what we look at, but who we become through the way we look.