Jure Kastelic's 'Musical Chairs' at Carl Kostyál's Milan Home

Jure Kastelic (Slovenia, 1992) presented a new body of large-scale jute paintings at the Milan residence of collector Carl Kostyál, accessible by invitation or reservation. The exhibition, titled 'Musical Chairs,' features surreal imagery of exotic princesses, masked kings, and armored knights, symbolizing an alternative to contemporary reality marked by generational struggles in education, housing, and employment under capitalism. Kastelic draws inspiration from Peter Turchin's 2023 essay 'End Times,' which analyzes elite versus counter-elite power struggles, comparing this conflict to the game of musical chairs. The artist aims to imagine a new order beyond capitalism, focusing on innovation and technology. The works are generated using Midjourney AI, then painted with acrylics on jute, rejecting spray guns for a raw, textured materiality that bridges past and future. Kastelic also explores cryptocurrency through the painting 'Arianna,' reinterpreting the myth of the Cretan princess: Ariadne's thread is likened to Bitcoin as an escape from traditional financial systems. The exhibition reflects on value preservation amid social inequality and economic challenges, drawing from digital and analog sources, online communities, classical painters, and economic history texts.