Hiša Plečnik House X Iñaki Bonillas: ARS MEMORIAE

This multilayered exhibition project combines a sound intervention in the heart of Plečnik's home — the architect's bedroom and study — with an exhibition that offers an architectural, photographic, and poetic reflection on memory and how it becomes architecture, creation, even resistance. The exhibition begins with the artist's text entitled Majhen plašč besed (A Small Coat of Words) – the title was inspired by the poetry of Srečko Kosovel, which Bonillas first encountered on a trip when he also discovered Plečnik almost a decade ago. The text, which is not just a collection of data but an architecture of the vanished, where the boundary between truth and imagination is fragile, blurred, and alive, is recorded in Slovenian and English and released on vinyl. It is played in Plečnik's bedroom and study on the ground floor of the house. Twice a day, visitors are able to listen to Bonillas' interpretation of Plečnik's house, which he created from his own memory.

The second part of the exhibition consists of three series of stereoscopic photographs, which the artist named after a poem by the Mexican Baroque poet Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695). The poem, far ahead of its time, raises questions about knowledge, the limits of human understanding, and the infinity of the universe, which Bonillas connects with the technique of stereography — once popular photographic doubles that allowed viewers a three-dimensional view of architectural gems and distant landscapes. The artist has chosen images related to classical architecture, subtly referring to the creative explorations of Jože Plečnik. The poem, which travels between day and night, between wakefulness and sleep, is in this context also a metaphor for the house where the architect's work and his everyday life coexisted.

Alongside the series of photographs, visitors can listen to the entire recording of the intervention Small Coat of Words in Slovenian, English, and Spanish, and read selected verses by Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz, which served as inspiration for the artist. The intervention in Plečnik's study is given special significance by the collaboration with Pear Audio Europe d.o.o., which has lent its top-of-the-range turntable, manufactured in Slovenia, for the exhibition.

Blaž Peršin, director of the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana, emphasizes that the exhibition project makes an important contribution to new interpretations and artistic experiences of Plečnik's legacy today, saying: “Plečnik's legacy still carries exceptional inspirational power. With exhibitions such as ARS MEMORIAE, we are bringing it up to date and opening it up to dialogue with contemporary artistic practices. Iñaki Bonillas has enhanced his subtle artistic intervention in Plečnik House with a surprising sound recording on a vinyl, which opens up a view of Plečnik, the artist’s personal world and time, slipping away with the memories that surround him.”

The curator of the exhibition, Tevž Logar, adds: “In the ARS MEMORIAE exhibition, memory unfolds like architecture, which Mexican artist Iñaki Bonillas constructs from words, images, and deliberate absences. Returning to Jože Plečnik's house, he revives what was lost and subtly transforms the experience of space into its new image. A walk through the exhibition is conceived as an ephemeral journey, where photographs and sound recordings do not stand alone, but together weave a multi-layered space of memory in which sight and hearing merge into a single entity. Fragility and devotion thus intertwine in a quiet, almost ritualistic act of reconstruction, which is at the same time a rebellion against oblivion.”

Artist Iñaki Bonillas emphasizes: “It’s always extremely inspiring to be in a space where another artist lived and worked, but in this house that feeling was even more profound, as Jože Plečnik, being an architect, created a unique atmosphere imbued with his presence down to the smallest detail. This atmosphere transported me to a universe filled with memories and connections to my own life, my ancestors, and certain affinities and obsessions that I share with Plečnik, such as a love of books, objects, fragments, and ancient art. This work is one of the most fruitful dialogues I have had with an artist from the past, whose work I have admired for many years, and who led me to aspects of my practice that I had not explored so deeply before, such as writing and sound art. I hope that the public will appreciate the relationship I enthusiastically established with the house and its original resident.” 

Simultaneously with the opening of the exhibition, Iñaki Bonillas donated all the artworks created specifically for the exhibition at Plečnik House to the collection of the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana. He emphasized: “My greatest wish is for these works to remain in the house's collection. They were created especially for this space, and it is here that they have their true meaning.”

Iñaki Bonillas (b. 1981, Mexico City) is a Mexican artist who lives and works in his hometown. His artistic practice focuses on exploring photography as a medium and its relationship to memory, the archive, and personal history. A central source of inspiration and research is the photographic archive of his grandfather, J. R. Plaza, which Bonillas has transformed into conceptual artistic narratives through various projects.

He has exhibited in numerous major museums and institutions worldwide, including Museo Amparo in Puebla, La Virreina Centre de la Imatge in Barcelona, Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, and Matadero in Madrid, and has participated in important international events such as the Venice Biennale and the biennials in São Paulo and Prague.

A special place in his oeuvre belongs to the project Secretos (2016), carried out in the house of the world-renowned architect Luis Barragán in Mexico City. Through small, often hidden interventions in the basement, drawers, and other less noticeable corners of the house, he intertwined photography, space, and intimate memory, creating a quiet narrative of presence and absence.

This project opens an interesting connection with the Plečnik House in Ljubljana, where Bonillas, within the project ARS MEMORIAE, explores the architecture and legacy of Jože Plečnik. As with Barragán, he is interested here in how the house, both as a space and as an archive of memory, generates new readings of the master’s life and work.