Sreten Asanović, Nomina, Plima, Ulcinj, 2011
By: Ivana Ančić
English version will be available soon.
Lecture: Zoran Todorović’s Moving Images, Filmforum, Student’s Culture Centre (SKC), Belgrade, October 18, 2011
By: Ana Bogdanović
The relationship between contemporary art and its audience, if we exclude experts and a small circle of true connoisseurs, is a problematic field of interaction which often creates great misunderstandings. On the one hand, art knows that pursuing the self-referential path means abandoning various levels of accessibility regarding its broader audience. On the other hand, the public is often impatient, disinterested and not very keen to take on an artistic challenge without prejudice. One of the authors that addresses the audience directly, trying to bridge the gap between art and the world around us through provocation, is the Belgrade artist Zoran Todorović (1965). Presentation of his video works as part of the Student Culture Centre Filmforum programme in late October at the SKC’s Little Hall, was another opportunity to delve into the issue of the reception of Todorović’s work in his homeland. His opus is begrudgingly commented on and causes crude and negative response based on complete misunderstanding of his artistic endeavour.
The general public has known about him since 2009, when he participated at the Venice Biennale, alongside Katarina Zdjelar in the Serbian Pavilion. He has been very active since the mid-90’s both here and internationally. His works with different media (video, sculpture, installation) observe social phenomena and behaviour in order to establish intense communication with the audience. Focusing on video works “Hum” from 1998 and “Gypsies and Dogs” from 2007, Todorović initiated successful dialogue with the audience at SKC, talked about the process of creation and the role of the video medium in his opus, as well as the wider context of meaning and carrying out his artistic practice. With almost ten years between them, both works deal with a current phenomenon, while their interpretation and approach to video as an artistic medium with a particular relation to its viewer, places them in a notable position within the local art scene. Both works resulted from a process that took on modern surveillance technologies which control and usurp the public, while the video installation format creates a new situation in the exhibition space which is supposed to trigger a response from the audience, more than anything else. The older video “Hum” was created using material captured by a device specifically design to record messages and set up by the artist in 1998 and 1999 at three separate locations – at a street in Belgrade, the psychiatric hospital and prison. These automatic recording devices were used by passer-by, patients and convicts who were leaving different messages, statements, opinions and observations in the form of a one-sided dialogue with an imaginary interlocutor. The edited material is represented as a three-channel video work, with each channel displaying one of the locations. “Gypsies and Dogs” is based on a similar principle – a micro camera is placed around the neck of a street dog, or in a small bag carried by young Roma beggars, recording situations and passers-by while they interact with children and dogs. The recorded material does not have an obvious narrative, the sequences are brief and random, with the material played on two channels. Only the politically incorrect title “Gypsies and Dogs” reveals the actual matter, causing a big media reaction after this work was shown at the 50th October Salon in 2009. Popular daily newspaper columns antagonised the work reading it as a conspiracy theory with a powerful political background, until a petition was submitted to remove it from the Salon. Although the intention of the author is to provoke and cause a public stir, that is not his ultimate goal. In both of his woks, the video functions as a medium for presenting documents of accidental reactions from people in different public spaces that are being usurped by the artist’s intervention of setting up a camera, either overtly or covertly. With the introduction of marginalised spaces, also unavailable to the general public, such as a psychiatric hospital or prison, and the perspective of marginalised groups, such as the Roma children and stray dogs, Todorović brings everyday, often sidelined models of acting and reacting in society to the exhibition venue seen from angles that the audience is unaccustomed to. Expecting to see something disturbing or excessive in what the cameras captured, the viewer is confronted with images which are neither too shocking, nor brutal, and boil down to non-representation in his more recent work. With a thoughtful confrontation at the town square – psychiatric hospital – prison, in the case of “Hum” and provocative title with “Gypsies and Dogs”, Todorović offers a well-constructed provocation for the audience. In this way, by intelligent selection and representation of the topic without taking any of the popular political or ideological sides, he manages to avoid the current traps of political correctness in art which only maps out social issues, without any elaboration in the artistic domain. On the contrary, he opens a space to confront the works, slowly uncovering the symptoms and recent public and social traumas which, when seen from an inaccessible perspective, make the society rebel against itself and embrace all aspects in which it manifests itself, whether positive or negative. The artificial and clandestine public surveillance in public space allows Todorović to skillfully manipulate the public response which often indicates disapproval at watching its own reflection in the mirror. If so, is not our refusal to listen to what Todorović has to say actual proof of our own inability to look at ourselves honestly and without being carried away by popular social stereotypes, coming to terms with art that communicates with the age we are living in?
More about Zoran Todorović at www.zorantodorovic.com, while the Filmforum SKC Programme is available at www.skc.org.rs/filmforum.html.
Sreten Asanović, Nomina, Plima, Ulcinj, 2011
By: Ivana Ančić
English version will be available soon.
OSMI I SEDMI PUTNIK, Aleksandar Bjelogrlić, Citadela, Agora, Zrenjanin, 201
By: Dalibor Plečić
English version will be available soon.
Stjepan Gulin, Paz’te sad, paz’te sad (Meandarmedia, Zagreb, 2011.)
Authors: Ivana Ančić
Igor Marojević, Kroz glavu (Dosije, Beograd, 2012.)
Author: Dalibor Plečić
Damir Miloš, Pisa. Povratak (Meandarmedia, Zagreb, 2011.)
Author: Morena Livaković
POLITIČKE I DRUŠTVENE KONSTRUKCIJE IDENTITETA U VIDEO-PERFORMANSIMA NA BEOGRADSKOJ SCENI 1970-ih
Esej Vladimira Bjeličića
Esej u celini možete pročitati na portalu SEEcult.org
Esej Tihane Bertek
Od promatrača do sudionika
GALERIJA KAPELICA I POST-JUGOSLAVENSKI BODY ART (1995–2010)
Esej – Bojan Krištofić
Esej o radovima Šejle Kamerić, Maje Bajević i Nebojše Šerića Shobe
Piše: Slađana Golijanin
ESEJ – Razvaline socijalizma kao inspiracija za muzejske eksponate Mrđana Bajića i skulpturalne dosetke Ivana Fijolića
By: Milena Milojević
Piše: Nino Kovačić
Gostujuća izvedba šibenskog HNK, Pir malograđana, prema tekstu mladog Bertolda Brechta (napisan 1919.) izvedena je po sljedećoj formuli: na Danima satire u satiričkom kazalištu Kerempuh gledamo satiričan komad. Prema reakcijama publike, bila je uspješna, ali teško se oteti dojmu da je smijeh bio formulaično zagarantiran, jer bi takav instruirani moment humora trebao zauzdati spontani smijeh. Je li se možda radilo o “malograđanskom” humoru?
Glumice i to, KNAP, Zagreb, premijera 12.5.2012.
Piše: Nino Kovačić
Glumice i to, nova predstava u zagrebačkom KNAP-u, neobičan su kazališni ‘slučaj’. Naime, predstavu su, dramaturški i režijski osmislile te, naravno, glumački ostvarile četiri mlade glumice. U trenutačnoj opće-društvenoj, pa tako i kazališnoj situaciji, kojom prijete olovni pojmovi poput recesije, prekarijata i outsourcinga (nedavno su najavljena i otpuštanja “hladnopogonskih” glumaca), one su, kako piše u najavi “nezaposlene i pune entuzijazma, odlučile su preuzeti stvar u svoje ruke i napraviti hit!”. Očito sklone postdramskom pristupu izvedbi koji se, između ostalog, bazira na ekipnoj work-in-progress metodi, izvedbenoj anti-iluziji i autoreferencijalnosti, glumice/autorice su se “trgnule” i napravile parodiju o tome kako rade predstavu, po ironičnom ključu: kad ne ide pravljenje predstave treba napraviti predstavu o tome kako se ne može raditi predstava.
“Nije život biciklo”, Biljana Srbljanović, režija: Anselm Veber, Produkcija: Šaušpilhaus Bohum, Nemačka; Sterijino pozorje 2012, selekcija Nacionalne drame i pozorišta
By: Tamara Baračkov
English version will be available soon.
„Grebanje, ili kako se ubila moja baka“, Tanja Šljivar, režija: Selma Spahić, Bosansko narodno pozorište Zenica/Bitef teatar-Hartefakt (Beograd), premijera: 7. septembar 2012. (Zenica), 11. oktobar 2012. (Beograd)
By: Tamara Baračkov
English version will be available soon.
„Sluga dvaju gospodara“, Karlo Goldoni, režija: Boris Liješević, Grad teatar Budva/Srpsko narodno pozorište Novi Sad/Narodno pozorište „Toša Jovanović“ Zrenjanin, premijera: 27. jul 2012.
By: Tamara Baračkov
English version will be available soon.