Ive Tabar

Biography

Ive Tabar is one of the more visible artists working in the specific field of medical performance in the context of body-art or live-art among other internationally acclaimed artists of the field like Orlan, Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose, Kira O'Reilly, Stelarc, Franco B, Ron Athey. Tabar draws his performance themes from his everyday work at the Izola General Hospital. The central figure of his artistic and metaphysical interest is the border between life and death, which he encounters on a daily basis. His medical performances are physically extremely demanding, poetically charged and politically explicitly radical. In his younger years, when he was working as a male nurse in traumatology at the local hospital, he recognised the hospital environment as a medium for his artistic expression. One of his first recognisable yet less known works was a series of X-ray autoportrait with a crucifix and a chain, which was exhibited at the local parish church or a series of 180 found X-ray footages of different subjects all quite the same in the X-ray vision. Ive Tabar began to use his body in explicit ways under the patronage of Kapelica Gallery. Thought his work the incentive is based on his firm ethical stance that all people are equal and that politics and capital divide them. 

Artwork

Tabar, Ive, Europe II, Kapelica Gallery, Obalne galerije Piran, Koper / Capodistria, 2 March 2001, 04' 04"
Tabar, Ive, Europe III [close-up view], Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, 19 November 2003, 10' 42"
Tabar, Ive, Europe III [unedited view], Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, 19 November 2003, 57' 00"
Tabar, Ive, Acceptio [preparations], Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, 20 December 2004, 29' 19"
Tabar, Ive, El-en-i [edited recording], Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, 10 December 1998, 14' 52"
Tabar, Ive, Acceptio, Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, 20 December 2004, 10' 05"
Tabar, Ive, Intubation [edited], Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, 11 December 1997, 02' 11"
Tabar, Ive, El-en-i [trailer], Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, 10 December 1998, 03' 35"

Documentation

Publication

Umetniška dela

Type Artist statement
Date 7 December 1999
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 02:27

Notice: The recording has acute damage to sound and video.

[]

Type Hacktivism, Action
Date 4 December 2009
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 05:06

Radioactive materials, their properties, and effects are one of the most tabooised fields of science and technology, and beset by entrenched opinions. The mix of prejudice produces an almost complete suppression and absence of public discussion[]

Subtitle Arzenal Depo / 2K9
Type Hacktivism, Action
Date 24 December 2008
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 05:26

Radioactive materials, their properties, and effects are one of the most tabooised fields of science and technology, and beset by entrenched opinions. The mix of prejudice produces an almost complete suppression and absence of public discussion[]

Subtitle Arzenal Depo / 2K9
Type Hacktivism, Action
Date 24 December 2008
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 05:51

Radioactive materials, their properties, and effects are one of the most tabooised fields of science and technology, and beset by entrenched opinions. The mix of prejudice produces an almost complete suppression and absence of public discussion[]

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 10 December 1998
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 03:35

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 11 December 1997
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 02:11

Ive Tabar developed his artistic language (idiolect) in a truly unique way. Considering that he does not have an academic background, it can be said that his artistic discourse emerged from practice - his dexterity in the handling of materials and[]

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 1 March 2007
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 11:57

Ive Tabar developed his artistic language (idiolect) in a truly unique way. Considering that he does not have an academic background, it can be said that his artistic discourse emerged from practice - his dexterity in the handling of materials and[]

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance, Statement
Date 1 March 2007
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 08:43

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 20 December 2004
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 10:05

Acceptio corpus alieni is a medical term for denoting a successful proliferation of donor tissue or organ into the body of the host. Performance Acceptio belongs into the opus of intimistic projects, where Tabar contrasts personal, spiritual,[]

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 10 December 1998
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 14:52

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 10:20

Pumping the blue liquid out of his stomach... Ive Tabar developed his artistic language (idiolect) in a truly unique way. Considering that he does not have an academic background, it can be said that his artistic discourse emerged from practice -[]

Type Body-art / Live-art
Date 2 March 2001
City of production Koper / Capodistria
Format 720x576

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 19 November 2003
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 06:10

In the performance with subtitle Fingernail Tabar problematises the effect of otherwise completely legitimate, the majority decision of Slovenian citizens, that Slovenia becomes a part of the European Union. The unbearable predominance of the[]

Type Artivism, Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 1 March 2007
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 11:55

Ive Tabar developed his artistic language (idiolect) in a truly unique way. Considering that he does not have an academic background, it can be said that his artistic discourse emerged from practice - his dexterity in the handling of materials and[]

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 20 December 2004
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 29:19

Acceptio corpus alieni is a medical term for denoting a successful proliferation of donor tissue or organ into the body of the host. Performance Acceptio belongs into the opus of intimistic projects, where Tabar contrasts personal, spiritual,[]

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 1 March 2007
City of production Ljubljana
Format 1920x1080
Duration 27:08

Ive Tabar developed his artistic language (idiolect) in a truly unique way. Considering that he does not have an academic background, it can be said that his artistic discourse emerged from practice - his dexterity in the handling of materials and[]

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 19 November 2003
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 57:00

In the performance with subtitle Fingernail Tabar problematises the effect of otherwise completely legitimate, the majority decision of Slovenian citizens, that Slovenia becomes a part of the European Union. The unbearable predominance of the[]

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 19 November 2003
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 10:42

In the performance with subtitle Fingernail Tabar problematises the effect of otherwise completely legitimate, the majority decision of Slovenian citizens, that Slovenia becomes a part of the European Union. The unbearable predominance of the[]

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 21:01

Pumping the blue liquid out of his stomach... Ive Tabar developed his artistic language (idiolect) in a truly unique way. Considering that he does not have an academic background, it can be said that his artistic discourse emerged from practice -[]

Type Presentation
Date 7 December 1999
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 54:06

Pumping the blue liquid out of his stomach... Ive Tabar developed his artistic language (idiolect) in a truly unique way. Considering that he does not have an academic background, it can be said that his artistic discourse emerged from practice -[]

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 2 March 2001
City of production Koper / Capodistria
Production Obalne galerije Piran
Format 720x576
Duration 04:04

Type Body-art / Live-art, Perseverance performance
Date 10 December 1998
City of production Ljubljana
Format 720x576
Duration 14:38

'El-en-i' is a performance in which Tabar inserts a catheter into his heart until it starts to fibrillate, which proves that a tiny line between life and death has been reached. Ive Tabar developed his artistic language (idiolect) in a[]