TENTATIVO
By Giuseppe Pietroniro and Mrdjan Bajić
10 / 10 – 10 / 12 / 25
Curated by WHY NAT
On the occasion of the 21st edition of Contemporary Art Day, the yearly event promoted by AMACI – the Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums, Tentativo exhibition presents an original artistic dialogue between Italy and Serbia.
The exhibition was initiated by the Italian Ambassador to Serbia, Luca Gori, and curator Nataša Radojević, as a result of the long-standing collaboration and friendship between two artists whose works converge in a shared exploration of sculpture in the expanded field—through investigations into the potential of form, function, and meaning.
The exhibition layout moves from smaller and medium-format works toward a central space where the key pieces of the show are presented: Rocking Doors by Italian artist Giuseppe Pietroniro and Look at Me Through Apollo’s Eyes by Serbian artist Mrdjan Bajić, along with their collaborative work Tentativo, created specifically for this exhibition.
This installation is conceived for a specific architectural environment, where space actively participates in the process of sculptural formation - both as a predetermined stage set and as its conceptual extension.
Giuseppe Pietroniro – Rocking Doors
The installation Rocking Doors is part of the In_Stability series, inspired by Jean Baudrillard’s The System of Objects. Pietroniro has been developing this series since 2006, and it was first presented in Rome in collaboration with curator Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, then director of the Olivetti Foundation.
The installation consists of wooden portals in shades of grey, blue, and white, mounted on axes that allow them to oscillate. By removing the door handle—a symbolic invitation to pass from one space into another—and introducing unpredictable swaying movements, these standard architectural elements lose their usual utilitarian function.
Instead of opening or closing a passage, they transform into kinetic bodies that oscillate between vertical and diagonal axes.
The tension at the threshold of the known and the unknown in Pietroniro’s work confronts the viewer with a primal urge to explore the source of their fears—hidden, “otherworldly” forces. In this way, the scenography operates as a space of imagination, activating an aura around the observed object.
The interaction with the audience unfolds through mystical experiences that invert the order of reality. The sense of fluidity in form, derived from the illusion of perspective, introduces a heightened awareness of uncertainty and the mutability of everything we perceive as tangible—invoking transformation as the only constant in eternity.
Mrdjan Bajić – Look at Me Through Apollo’s Eyes
The sculptural installation Look at Me Through Apollo’s Eyes (2020–2023) was created using Bajić’s signature method of large-scale construction-based sculpture, a hallmark of his artistic practice since the late 1980s.
The work consists of industrial elements: a metal structure in the form of a vertical pillar supports a central figure—a fragmented, monumental head shaped in terracotta, with portions cast in polyester and painted.
Apollo’s head, modeled on the classical prototype and painted in blue, symbolically refers to the traditional sculptural canon. The fragment, mounted vertically and treated in relief, contains a hollow where one eye would be—an absence that becomes the visual and conceptual focal point of the piece.
Built into the pedestal are steps that lead the viewer to the height of Apollo’s nape, inviting them to adopt the perspective indicated in the title itself: Look at Me Through Apollo’s Eyes. The sculpture references the mythological Apollo—god of light, art, and eternal youth—portrayed as the idealized male figure and a symbol of classical beauty.
Bajić transforms this ancient ideal into a contemporary visual language, employing hybrid and deconstructed forms that reinterpret mythological narratives as modern symbolic messages. Between myth and reality, past and present, the eternal and the transient, the artist explores the voids that time has left on the faces of ancient statues.
In the final spatial sequence, the joint work of two artists stands out under the title Tentativo – an attempt at artistic intertwining of two sensibilities into a unique sculptural form. In the work of both artists, we recognize drawing as the fundamental and accompanying element in shaping the structure.
A clear closeness is visible in the expressive volume and figurative forms, the use of industrial materials, and the combination of technical and architectural elements. While Bajić, in his work, retains the rawness and original shape of certain parts of the construction, using narrative in building the form and pointing to a reflection on sculpture as a visual symbol, Pietroniro communicates through simple geometry, meticulous processing, a play of values, and the multiplication of form, with a focus on perception and spatial tension in constructing a dialogue with the viewer. Characteristic of Pietroniro’s artistic practice is conceptual minimalism with architectural connotations. While Bajić communicates through material expression and the symbolism of the body and construction, Pietroniro uses a reduced form to achieve spatial effect and subtle meaning. Their joint work demonstrates how contemporary artistic language can develop toward narrative sculpture on the one hand and spatial abstraction on the other, while remaining in dialogue with their own traditions.
The unity in the work of Giuseppe Pietroniro and Mrdjan Bajić is reflected in the instability of form, the illusion of stasis, the treatment of color as a symbolic element, and the reinterpretation of sculpture in the context of its traditional role – whether it lies in the psychological field of meaning (Pietroniro) or the mythological (Bajić). Whether it is an uneasy oscillation of space or a view through Apollo's eye, Tentativo opens a dialogue about the nature of art as a framework within which reality appears only when it begins to slip away. N.R.
EMBASSY OF ITALY
BIRČANINOVA 9A, BELGRADE
Special thanks to Untitled Assosiation
