alternative art guide

An article by Severine Grosjean

Belgrade is known as the capital of the Balkans nightlife or as one of the central scenes of the Yugoslav war of the 90s. But it could also be known as the birthplace of the phenomenon of the art world Marina Abramovic. She is one of the few artists from the former Yugoslavia to have achieved international recognition. Indeed, the budget or the attention of the public authorities are not enough in this region, and it is a pity, because not only does it have a rich cultural heritage, but its contemporary art scene is in full swing.

Silence and noice in inter-action, Art and Science

The art scene is small but existing. There are many spaces of exposure or experimentation. U10 is an independent art space of the most popular among the younger generations. This gallery welcomes young contemporary artists from the local and regional scene. Making the link with the need for self-organization in the local context, the artistic space U10 was created at the initiative of artists: Lidija Delić, Nina Ivanovic, Sava Knežević, Isidora Krstić, Iva Kuzmanović, Nemanja Nikolić, Marija Šević.

Space Opera, Milica Kolaric, photo Deana Petrovic

This space was in response to the inability of public articulation and professional development of young visual artists in the local environment, as well as the need for active and visible public artistic activity through self-organization.

Silence and noice in inter-action, Art and Science

Stanja Uma_4, Marija Sevic

Its independent exhibition space is fundamentally aimed at helping young artists who are just beginning their careers by exposing their work to the public. U10 Art Space works actively to create a culture of arts education, debate and exchange between artists, curators, art theorists, writers and the general public.

A fresh and feverish creative energy is not surprising. U10 fight the frustration of new artists and the lack of connection between young artists in Serbia. The opportunities are many and changes are happening, but they are slow.

25 November 2018 / by Alternative Art Guide / in Geen categorie, Serbia

Anica Vučetić

Since 1999 she is working on video installations and environments, exploring unconsciousness, dreams, psychological processes as well as archetypal symbols. Experimenting with different projection-surfaces and screens she is undertaking an examination of real and virtual space locating the observers specific positions. I attempt to transform and materialize the inner theatre from mental screen to the outer space, so that the observer is provided with a complex territory to question the relationship to his own sub-consciousness.

Radoš Antonijević

Educated as a classical sculptor, re-examines the medium of sculpture and its borders through the creation of artworks which problematize the questions of function, materiality and perception. This formal research is always involved in the topics that touch neuralgic points of life, dealing with the aspects of history, politics, culture and society. His works of art which confront the function and shape have the epic nature with the ingredients of comic and tragic in the same picture. This epic nature is evident in his need for monumental and self-sufficient forms which can be seen in his tents-churches, personal museums of contemporary art or a church military barbecue trailer.

Selman Trtovac

The work of Selman Trtovac has begun to develop at a time of all well known terrible circumstances and events from the last decade of 20th century in Yugoslavia, as an indirect but undoubtedly the artist’s intimate, human, and in the final instance political reaction to those circumstances and events which he could not more effectively in reality oppose expect with artistic symbolic acting. In stead of being just the work of this artist, his work is almost a sublimation of a superindividual and common generational existential experience.

All three artists, among other, are highly contributed to the creation of a artistic micro utopia Third Belgrade.

Third Belgrade is an art group functioning upon a model of agricultural cooperative from old socialistic traditions.
TB is an applied example of the artistic expression of ethics.
TB is an event in itself, a radical attempt of practical implementation of collaborative art gathering.
TB is a building, gallery, residential space for artists, studio and an organization of visual artists.
TB is a conceptual framework for exploring of the politicization strategies of contemporary art.
TB is not trying to work within the idea of global political project, but the field of micro politics instead.
TB is a manifestation of our civic responsibility.
Third Belgrade is our art work!

Third Belgrade emerged from group of artists’ response to the many issues found in art and society today, the need to create a new micro-utopia, a new parallel world within the micro political context; to create artistic cradle network platform to connect with similar artistic initiatives; to enable artists overcome the problems of fragmentation, manipulation and instrumentation generated by political and economic power.

The name Third Belgrade derives from the urban planning denomination of the part of the city situated across the left bank of the river Danube, which is mostly rural and culturally irrelevant. This is the only artistic initiative ever to develop on the grounds best known as a working class slum on the borders of river’s swamp lands.

Third Belgrade is an initiative of eight artists: Salman Trtovac, Anica Vucetić, Radoš Antonijević, Milorad Mladenović, Oliver Parlić, Sanja Latinović, Rankop Đanković, Marina Marković and Marko Marković.

This is a group of artists with similar artistic sensibility and political inclinations. At the core of their initiative is the drive to alter the position of artists within society, by giving them the possibility to act on their convictions right now.

Third Belgrade is designed as a lively, dynamic and energetic center which brings together local artists with those from the region and the world, providing exhibition space, workshops and other educational content for general public. TB space consists of central gallery, the library, the club, as well as lounge spaces and residential premises suitable for lectures and workshops, and the garden used an open stage for various art events.

30 June 2017 / by Alternative Art Guide / in Serbia

Collective amnesia

While trying to describe how the social space in Serbia has been produced in recent history and what are the main driving forces that are shaping it up, I came up with the formulation of the perverse marriage between predatory capitalism and aggressive Orthodox Christianity. Here I would have to emphasize that each social space is distinct and that the subtle nuances and subvariations are making it specific. The social transformations in Serbia thus introduced a very special type of neoliberal “crony” capitalism based on patrimony.

On the other hand, the strong resurgence of Orthodox Christianity had fostered the processes of retraditionalization in all spheres of society and pushed aside the idea of contemporaneity which was very important for the socialist Yugoslavia. In such a society, history has become a major source for reinforcing national identity, but herewith exactly lays the danger of collective amnesia and erasure of all “undesired” narratives that are shading light on the sore points in constitution of such a “homogenized” national social space. The neoliberal tendencies and financial moguls are giving a hand to such processes by spatially whipping out and “building new layers” over the remnants and remains of such narratives both in public space and in media, such as holocaust from WWII, repression and deportation of German minority in Vojvodina after WWII, or genocide and ethnic cleansing in recent wars in 1990s.

Vladimir Miladinović

The politics of remembering, media manipulation and creation and reinterpretation of the historical narratives represent the main fields of interest in the artistic work of Vladimir Miladinovic. The starting point for him is the introspective method of analysis of the ways the media influenced his subjectivization in the period of wars and dissolution of Yugoslavia. From today’s perspective, Miladinovic gives fresh insight into the actual reinterpretations of these historical events. While following the processes of social transformations in Serbia, the artist reflects upon the current problems in all spheres of society. In the series of works The Worker in Protest, the author gives sharp comment of the media censorship and cover-up of the protests and strikes of workers, and in general the position and rights of the workers in today’s social system of predatory capitalism in Serbia. Miladinovic is mostly using the classical media such as painting and drawing to precisely, with brutal realism depict, document and transmit the events that could be seen as symptoms of the social problems. He would like to bring back to the public realm these events that were erased and suppressed through political and media manipulation.

http://www.vladimirmiladinovic.blogspot.com/

Personal/Political, 2012-ongoing. Series of drawings, Ink on paper, 60x40cm

Protest of Worker Halko Drustinac, 2011. Oil on canvas, 120x160cm

Figure of a leader Miroslav Miskovic, 2011. Oil on canvas, 120x160cm

Golden Age, 2010. Wall drawing, 60x40cm, graphite pencil and golden leafs

Nikola Radić Lucati

Nikola Radić Lucati is dealing with the history of Holocaust and Genocide through the prism of the actual status of architectural heritage in the period of post-transitional normalization in Serbia. In several projects (Predictable Outcomes, The Record, Communal Dwellings, etc.) he is thematizing the neglect Serbian government has for the places of such symbolic importance like the old Fair Ground in New Belgrade that was turned into a concentration camp in WWII. Furthermore, through his artistic research, he is exposing the ignorance of the authorities to recognize and acknowledge other sites and venues of mass crimes. With his exhibitions, the artist is actually documenting the processes of depolitization of the “memory speech” of the minority groups that is “silenced” and hegemonized by both strong nationalist politics and neoliberal urban restructurings. From the primary media of photography, in the projects like The Record, Radić Lucati is transposing the photographic records and collected archival documents into a solid material like steel, thus symbolically giving them connotation of commemorative plaques and denying the ephemeral status and erasure of these historical narratives from Serbian society.

http://www.nikolaradiclucati.com/

The Record, 2012. Cured UV on mild steel, etching 40x180cm

Predictable Outcomes, 2011. 40 lambda prints, 50x50cm each

Communal Dwellings, 2013. Installation, office desk, quicklime, cured UV on mild steel 125x100cm each panel, and 40x30cm and 60×40 cm texts

Dejan Atanacković

One of the main research points in both the teaching and artistic practice of Dejan Atanacković is focused on the social and historical aspects of the problem of disappearance – its causes and consequences. In the context of Serbia and Yugoslavia, this field of interest is best exemplified by the project German Lessons, where the artist is preoccupied with the fear of society to face its own past and acknowledge the problem of repression of the German population living in Vojvodina after WWII. Ethnic Germans that used to live there from the 18th Century were deprived of their civil rights; their property was confiscated by the state, and finally they were either sent to labor camps or secluded and starved to death. The records of these historical deeds were ignored for decades and just recently brought back into the public sphere. In this evocative work Dejan Atanackovic, by means of lessons in a language that was discretely kept “silent” for decades in certain families, sheds light on the problem of the identities that were built on these repressed memories. By tracking down family stories, records, documents, and photos, including his own mother’s, he is addressing the problem of memory loss and erasure of historical events from a nation’s “collective consciousness”.

http://www.dejanatanackovic.com/Site/Home.html

Kennen Sie Ihre Familie? (German Lessons). Artget Gallery, Belgrade Cultural Center, 2010

German Lessons. Free Port of Art, Magazzino 26, Trieste, 2011

Kennen Sie Ihre Familie? (German Lessons), detail, digital print on wood, 2009

Totenbuch (German Lessons), lambda print, 60x80cm, 2010

Imre (from German Lessons), video, 5', 2010

Zoran Erić

I have developed my professional activities in three main avenues. I see them as intertwined, strongly interconnected and with equal relevance in my work.

– My academic research (Belgrade University, Bauhaus Dessau, Media Faculty at Bauhaus University in Weimar) consisted of examining the meeting points of urban geography, spatial-cultural discourse, and theories of radical democracy. This discourse could be coined spatioanalysis (Raumdeutung), an analysis of libidinal circuits between subject, society and space, and their political implications. I continue to use these theoretical tools to reflect upon cultural phenomena and especially contemporary art practice. Furthermore, I have written text and essays, edited publications and magazines, and conducted research on such topics as the production of identity and identification, glocalization, precarious labour, etc.

-In curatorial practice I am trying to analyze the position of artists in the public sphere, and thematize problems that they are dealing with, while reflecting the social as well as institutional contexts in which they work. I am especially (but not exclusively) interested in research-informed artistic work that deals with different contextual layers of social space and how it is being produced and reproduced. My aim as a curator is to create a context where critical questions on certain issues in society that I am posing in conjunction with the artists would acquire more fertile ground for reception in the (cultural) public sphere.

– Finally, I have developed the model of workshop as a means for the production of knowledge as well as artistic production. I directed a program of curatorial workshops in Belgrade and internationally from 2000 to 2005. When I assumed the position of Head of the Centre for Visual Culture at Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade in 2005, I developed a specific methodology of work for this educational department. The focus was on local as well as international cooperation with professionals of various profiles in order to create an open laboratory where they could discuss and develop issues surrounding contemporary art and its social function in relation to the art system and socio-political context that frames it.

30 June 2017 / by Alternative Art Guide / in Serbia