June, 2007.

Magacin u Kraljevića Marka

The project consists of the exhibition of art works and documentary materials on the problem of the relation between private and public space in contemporary Belgrade. Presented works are gathered with the intent to point out the changeability and dependence of that relation in the context of certain political and social circumstances. The phenomenon that is being explored is based on the thesis of the disappearance of public space in favor of private space in the transitional period through which our society is passing. The beginning of 90’s had been taken as the starting point, and the present day as the final, with the idea to chronologically present the tendency of disappearance of the public in favor of private space, which, though it might seem as a paradox at first, also causes the disappearance of the individual and one’s total withdrawal into anonymity.

On the other hand, we have tried to deal with certain strategies which artists use in order to present themselves in the right way to the public. Contemporary theories which deal with the fact that the artistic practice is, in a certain way, stepping out of the private space into the public one, put in motion interesting questions about the relation of private and public in the artistic practice itself, and about the ways in which it shapes the society and reality.

The project itself is based on contemporary artistic production from the late 90’s till today, but also on the visual phenomena of contemporary marketing, television, and all the electronic and printed media in general. The phenomenon of street life, and all the forms of public visual expression as graffiti, but also the political paroles, are fit into a general image of society, which is sometimes unconsciously privatized, and takes on the public space. The exhibition hopes to open the question of the rights of an individual in the public space through a specific perspective based on the visual exploration as the dominant means of the construction of reality.

Contemporary art, in part because of the nature of its production and representation, used to rely intensely on the public space, while the private space was almost completely left aside. Our goal is to point, through artistic action, to the relation of private and public space, and contemporary technological society, as well as to the impact that this kind of relation has on the individual and society in general.

Katarina Mitrović i Saša Janjić

Artists
diSTRUKTURA, Mileta Prodanović, Uroš Đurić, Viktor Šekularac, Raša Todosijević, Nina Todorović, Mihael Milunović, Mrđan Bajić, etc.

Documentary materials
Video clips from the Radio-Television of Serbia, Pink TV, Palma TV; photographs from the archives of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Student Cultural Center; documents from the journals of the National Library of Serbia; publications and photographs from private collections.

Curators
Katarina Mitrović i Saša Janjić