Sreten Asanović, Nomina, Plima, Ulcinj, 2011
By: Ivana Ančić
English version will be available soon.
Igor Eškinja, Inhabitants of generic places | NO Gallery of Contemporary Art Museum, Zagreb| November 4 – November 20, 2011
By: Ana Bogdanović
One of the powers of art lies in its ability to provoke experience from the audience by employing conspicuous visual means which allows them, at least for a moment, to share the distorted point of view imposed by the artist. In order for the play with the viewer to be successful, artists used trompe-l’œil (French for “illusion”), which means accurate presentation of space in the painting with the aim to create an illusion of three-dimensional space which is a seamless continuation of the tangible space surrounding the viewer. Removing the boundary between real and imaginary space, perception was fooled and a human need satisfied, to make things appear as real in art as they are in life. If we apply this to our day and age, where the mass phenomenon of virtual reality, popularity of four, five, and six-dimensional movie experiences in cinemas, skillfully and very manipulatively, affects the confusion between the real and construed space of the viewer, mimetic representation of familiar situations in art does not manage to satisfy the complex perceptional expectation of the viewer. Testing the limits of perception, not just art, but what we call reality, is the main challenge posed by the Croatian author Igor Eškinja with Inhabitants of generic places.
Within the exhibition series called Stars from CEE, organised by Bank Austria that is involved in the presentation of young artists from Eastern and South East Europe, Igor Eškinja (1975) showed his works, installations and photographs to the Zagreb audience in NO Gallery of Contemporary Art Museum.
Very sterile and reserved atmosphere, emphasised by brightly lit white walls dominates the exhibition space. At first, the discreet and contained display gives the impression of being in a scientific lab room, not a pleasant gallery filled with various spectacles. The reduced concept underlines precision and clarity of visual language with the artist communicates to his audience, allowing for enough space to perform his intricate visual essays. What is this really about?
Igor Eškinja’s work is based on complex research of the limits to human perception of the visible world, as well as testing artistic strategies to represent reality. With simple resources, such as, disposable photographic material and photo shows with everyday objects (table, chairs, bicycle, litter basket), he opens a new space for the observer which is appealing due to how unpretentious it is, only to fall into complicated visual traps of representation. When faced with the installation Trouble with Infinity, which is comprised of a role of photo paper on the wall and then spread in such a way as to lose the straight outlines and become a messy paper shape when switching from vertical to horizontal position, the viewer can hardly control what they see and what they are being shown because there is no way to make a distinction between where the real begins, and the virtual space ends.
While playing with the static gallery space and the unstable surface of the white paper, the artist triggers oscillations in the field of vision of the visitor, which range from hints of recognition of what is represented to the inability to clearly define in the field of vision. Similarly, interaction with the Panel discussion in basement (illusion and reality) photograph seems to represent a couple of chairs on a blue carpet. Only after watching it for a while, the skillful manipulation of the author is revealed – the viewer is in front of a photograph of an installation with cut-out fragments of a blue surface, which look like chairs from a certain point of view. The viewer is confused again, because what they thought they recognised, turned out to be proof of their weakness to observe the world without projected expectations of the well-known, becoming the integral part of their ability to perceive. With formally simplified references to unspectacular situations from the visible world, Eškinja manages to stimulate the viewer visually, who then has to question reality and doubt its representation, unlike the superficial and attractive advertised images from everyday life, which impose fictitious representations of reality to market various products.
Deconstruction of the world of perceptivity and its perception in Eškinja’s work does not stop with the new interaction with the viewer. Each of his works intelligently references his previous experience of art history, such as the inevitable ready made, representational meaning of photographic medium or answer to theoretical considerations of reality, such as Lacan’s thesis on the tripartite structure of the human subject. In any case, he manages to shake up our confidence in our own visual apparatus, pointing out that nothing is at seems at first sight. Relativity is not only a characteristic of movement through time, but also of static spatial relations, which we, very often naively, accept as unchangeable determination. This is probably one of the reasons why Eškinja reached the international scene, labelled as an artist from the South East Europe without fulfilling stereotypical and popular expectations about the exotic, post-communist artistic object, but presenting his reflections on art with power and insight.
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.