BIGGER PICTURE
The Lines 7.12. - 27.12.2018.
Who Am I? 12.29.2018 - 17.01.2019.
Glamorama 19.1. - 8.2.2019.
Hellfire 10.2. - 28.2.2019.
Bigger Picture, exhibition in four parts, features the work by artists Jovanka Stanojević, Mile Šaula, Aleksandar Dimitrijević, Djordje Stanojević, Nikola Džafo, Daniela Fulgosi, Dragana B Stevanović, Nevena Nesović, Olivera Parlić, Branislav Nikolić, Petar Mošić, Ivana Živić, Ljiljana Petrović, Valentina Savić, Mia Ćuk and Nikola Kolja Božović.
Conceived as passing through the eclectic space of four imaginary collectors, the four segments (Lines, Who Am I?, Glamorama and Hellfire) present a chronological and conceptual journey through collecting, marking two years since our opening.
Bigger Picture raises the question what an art collection is and what can it represent today, reminding that the true value of art collecting lies in its power to communicate with an individual sense of authenticity, forging deeper connections with the world.
The Lines: Art As Freedom explores the collection as the inner sanctum of a romantic modernist who seeks the sublime in the heritage of modernism, clean ergonomic lines and unique objects. With a nod to the era of early twentieth century philosophy and psychoanalysis, Mile Šaula explores the depth of the subconscious, Aleksandar Dimitrijević revisits the individualism of authorship through painterly gesture and erasure, while Đorđe Stanojević seeks purification of expression through abstraction and the esotheric natural forces.
Reflection as mirroring and as an act of self-awareness is the theme of Who Am I? Art As Reflection, we direct our gaze towards the phenomenon of lived experience and an art collection as a mirror, self-portrait, self-check and a phoenix-like quest for reawakening. Who Am I? is a collection as a participative diary of experiences for the collector navigated through a prism of the Other; quantitative and qualitative measure of being, linking the cognitive, affective or bodily experience. Who Am I? demands relational and summative answers: What am I encountering? Do I like it? What this a good experience? It is a space of calculable experience and absorption of individual perceptions as socially structured reality (Nikola Džafo), escapism (Ivana Živić), physicality (Jovanka Stanojević) and affective relations (Dragana B Stevanović).
While Who Am I? reflects, Glamorama: Art As Lifestyle represents: collection as investment, fictively based in the 1970s, is a masterclass in capital expression, taste and know-how. Glamorama talkes light-hearted attitude to deeper meaning, providing the Best Of and delight of ownership. This is an extract, simulacrum where the artists Petar Mošić, Olivera Parlić, Daniela Fulgosi and Valentina Savić playfully address gold standards at teh afterparty of the twentieth century.
Hellfire: Art As Evidence brings us back to the present, and looks into a collection of fractured yet stimulating fragments that provoke discourse about social engagement, ecocide, migration, transformation of the urban habitat. Hellfire collector cultivates their displeasure through the works that explore re-conceptualisation of industrial dereliction as ‘process art’ (Branislav Nikolić); absurdities of scale and meaning of microlandscapes as yet unexhausted tourist destinations (Nevena Nesović); conceptual and symbolically resonant recaptures of the past (Mia Ćuk); and altered perceptions of movement (Ljiljana Petrović).
Bigger Picture offers four possible exchanges between artists and collectors in a constant search for inner truths. It attempts a wider comment on the gallery as a performance space in which heteroglossia and dialogic interaction occur in the framework of multiple and mutual interaction of objects, showing the potential of moving their positions and positions, different reading, multiplication and stratification of meanings.
