Sreten Asanović, Nomina, Plima, Ulcinj, 2011
By: Ivana Ančić
English version will be available soon.
Aleksandar Jestrović Jamesdin: Beast from the East. Exhibition marking the occasion of the Culture Centre Belgrade Award at the 50th October Salon 2009, October 19 – November 9, 2011, Culture Centre Belgrade Gallery
By: Ana Bogdanović
A drum stick from an Iggy Pop concert next to a T-shirt with his picture painted in oil on sack canvas and a video made at an erotic entertainment centre, which is powered through an over capacitated extension cord under a portrait of a robot pet dog. Standing opposite, a kitchen shelf with object from mom’s pantry and a calendar for the year 2050 with paintings of her son’s artistic endeavours.
Prints of Nike tennis shoes in Benetton colours on white canvas and a stolen German billboard commercial turned into a Russian poster for the artist’s exhibition. Throat cut with a knife on a portrait of a vampire, with the motto “Death to Painting”. Photographs of tattooed roses which pay tribute to the tragically deceased porno performance diva from Hamburg and videos of an artist swimming freestyle in fountains in cities around the world. And a book that you can read from both ends – as a collection of homeworks and as a compilation of impressions from an integration course foreigners take in Germany. All this is only a part of a show called “Beast from the East” that the Belgrade artist Aleksandar Jestrović Jamesdin (1972), a Culture Centre Belgrade Award laureate currently residing in Berlin, presented at the 50th October Salon in 2009 at the CCB Gallery.
Jamesdin, as the nickname implies (a local, populist adaptation of the famous actor’s name), contemplates themes, phenomena and events from the world of popular and media-propelled culture in an intelligent and witty way. Through a combination of various artistic media, he is constantly improving and establishing his authentic artistic expression. Extremely noticed at the art scene during the 2000’s, when he was perceived as a tough guy with a strong attitude and a representative of a new current in contemporary Serbian painting, Jamesdin decided to move to Berlin two years ago where this cycle was created, named “Beast from the East”. From the point of view of a foreigner who finds himself in new surroundings and is obliged to attend an integration course in order to study German language, history and culture, he reacts to the globalisation imperatives of multiculturalism, free market and fast-flowing information. As a result, there are impulsive artistic comments of the most banal consumerist and popular manifestation of these phenomena. In this way, the footprints of Nike tennis shoes in various colours actually represent a funny response to the London riots from a few months ago, when they paradoxically fell prey to the anti-system oriented rioters (let’s not forget the once very viral YouTube video “Kosovo for tennis shoes”), swimming in fountains is an homage to Roma children who often enjoy such an activity during the summer, while the painting of an extension cord with entangled wires among which there is a wire that powers a mini TV – all of which functions as a metaphor for the obsessive relation between the modern man and the newest techno gadgets. In a time when people’s attention is bombarded by brief marketing content, reduced to only a couple of seconds, Jamesdin manages to attract and focus the audience’s attention with surprising and unexpected blends of visual information, and have fun while doing so. Although he vicariously uses contemporary media strategies and marketing placements of information, the messages that come across from his work go beyond any banal points. He demonstrates popular symbols of popular culture that are recognized by everyone as products which negate success and sustainability of the ideological systems from which they originated. By integrating intimate everyday bits into intelligent comments of our global everyday lives, truthfully, directly and with no holding back, Jamesdin provides a view towards a different surrounding where the world around us is observed and thought of without falsehood or prejudice, through a form and artistic standpoint that does not flirt with current fashionable trends of the local artistic practice. By consciously refusing to treat artistic practice as elitist, and rising above the pop-art framework, at the exhibition venue he creates sensory visual chaos that is confusing at first, and then they soon clearly become compatible pieces of an integrated whole where critical perception of modern society’s iconography is reflected and invades individual’s private sphere.
With an authentic attitude as an artist who does not settle for a monotonous, one-way acceptance of reality, as well as with a particularly immediate and powerful approach to the media that he shares his comments with, this author has justified the award given to him two years ago. And as for the “Beast from the East” and whether it justified what was taught at the integration course, that is something which still remains uncertain.
*Author would like to thank the artist for the attention and suggestions that he so kindly provided during her preparations to write this text. More about Aleksandar Jestrović Jamesdin’s work at http://jamesdin.wordpress.com
This publication has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Criticize This! and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.
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.