ON VALUE

Jelica Radovanovic and Dejan Andelkovic: A Multimedia Project, The Gallery of Modern Art at the Pancevo Cultural Center, April 3^rd – 20^th, 2012.

By: Slađana Golijanin

Jelica Radovanovic and Dejan Andelkovic, an artist couple from Belgrade, have been creating and exhibiting their artwork together for over two decades.  They decided to work together when they realized that they had the same or similar ideas and that their ways of realization coincided.  In their method of creating, various media and materials are used, while the themes that intrigue these two artists remain the same at their core, with minor variances from 1991 until today.  This time period is at the same time characterized by turbulent and radical changes in social relationships, in the status of the individual in society, as well as in the role of art in society.  Above all, the themes that they deal with are based on the reexamination of the identity of the subject via Lacan’s theory of language, through the relationship between and towards “The Great Other,” and, in the past few years, on questions that are posed by neoliberalism.  The modern framework of life and work in this region, which appeared after the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, is developed by the artists from the aspect of posing questions instead of giving concrete and defined answers.  In this way, new works of art also enter the prism of former interests, and they are placed under the inspection and research of relational instances between those concepts from the social practice of the former Yugoslav States which seem to have been determined once and for all.

Jelica Radovanovic and Dejan Andelkovic presented their multimedia project at the Gallery of Modern Art at the Pancevo Cultural Center.  This project includes a few group works of art that have been created over the past seven years.  They combined works of art that had been created during different time periods through various traditional as well as newer forms of media, from gouache and collages to a video and participatory project titled Trampa, and in this manner also reexamined the relationships between them on a contextual level.  The main focal point of the exhibition is the question of the devaluation of the system of values which is painted via artistic interventions and artifacts of hyperinflation that arose in Serbia from 1992 until 1994.  It was then that “The Great Other,” more precisely, the State and its Law, began to gradually weaken, followed by a series of chain reactions on all levels.  Due to the weakening of the national financial system, turmoil between governing structures began with the fall of Tito and communism as the initial “Great Other,” thus resulting in a variety of “The Others.”  In the context of “Their” practices, artists began to reexamine the manner in which one should behave towards “The Others” and the manner in which they behave towards us.

Dissatisfaction, unemployment, instigation, hate, and, finally war, occur when the national system loses control.  All of this leads to disturbances in the system of values on all levels.  This occurred between the former Yugoslav States with the goal of rebirth and the creation of a new, ethnically clean society.  Jelica and Dejan use currency bills that were used in the fromer Yugoslavia (the Dinar) as the paradigm of the rapid change of value – due to hyperinflation, this currency became worthless.  The number of zeros on the bills increased on a daily basis, but you couldn’t buy a liter of milk with the bill that had the most zeros on it.  Jelica and Dejan reexamined this type of disharmony between values by directly comparing it to the work people do that needs to be paid for and the currency that cannot pay for their labour.  They included photos of various professions on the currency bills, form physical labour workers to dancers.  “The Great Others,” whose portraits are painted on the bills, including Tito’s, seem to be indifferent towards the labour the workers put in.  There is no response or attempt to evaluate the labour, nor is there any form of aid.  The subjects, that is, the workers, are active and they want to earn a living by trying to get “The Great Others’” attention, but they are unsuccessful.  Aside from this way of reexamining the value of work invested and the State’s attitude towards it, the next exhibit group is made up of the following objects: tools wrapped in worthless, inflationary money and various non-functional objects made of the valueless paper.  One of the works of art titled + – Infinity, is the Mobius strip made of tin and wrapped in 10 dinar bills with the image of Arif Heralic, a moulder from Zenica, who is the synonym of the strength and significance of the working class.

Art in the form of videos is surely the most interesting segment of the exhibition.  The work of art titled Who is Serbia’s Greatest Artist? was exhibited at the gallery entrance.  The video was played on a small television screen and lasted only a few minutes.  It shows the close ups of three men who introduce themselves in sequences and, independent of one another, give speeches while playing billiards at the same time, thus underlining the dimension of competition on this level as well.  Much like the mystery people from the legendary television show “Kviskoteka,” person A, B, and C have to convince the audience that one of them is the greatest Serbian artist by presenting them with completely opposing arguments.  Person A is accepted by institutional critique, Person B is accepted by the audience, and Person C is halfway between these two positions.  On top of this, none of them are actually visual artists in real life.  It is the exhibition visitors’ task to decide who the greatest Serbian artist is by voting and submitting their ballots.  Without a doubt, this reminds us of the problematization of today’s social and political context and the world of art, in which the power of the manipulation of the masses via language and rhetorical abilities is one of the main characteristics of “The Great Other.”

The exhibition confirms that Jelica Radovanovic and Dejan Andelkovic have been, for many years now, first through their independent work, and later through collaboration, one of the more unique pairs of artists who use their artistic practice to react to the social system and the position of the artist in a prudential and convincing way.  Their approach to current politicized art isn’t satisfied with merely detecting current issues, but instead, it raises questions by problematicizing and by comparing these issues to one another.  In the theoretical sense, their artwork also relies on relational aesthetics – they reconstruct a complex web of questions that are related to a certain epoch and inspect their various answers.  Although this couple has been present on the art seen for a long time now, it is a great loss for the art scene that they exhibit their work very rarely.  They consciously chose the margins as their standpoint, and, thus, they only exhibit their work when they have something to say or relay.  Such a shame since exhibitions such as these are rare and very valuable.