Konverzacija - Museum of Contemporary Art and Centre for Contemporary Art, Belgrade

[anna balint]

From: Branko Dimitrijevic <branko at dijafragma.com>

Dear Friends,
Museum of Contemporary Art and Centre for Contemporary Art (Belgrade)
would like to invite you to the re-opening of the Museum of Contemporary
Art   in Belgrade on October 20 with the exhibition:

KONVERZACIJA
(A Short-Notice Show)

The project.
The project KONVERZACIJA is conceived as an opening exhibition of
the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade under its new
management. During the 90s this Museum represented a cultural
mirror-image of the official war-mongering policy of the Serbian regime.
KONVERZACIJA - the first big international show of contemporary art
in Belgrade in the last two decades - mark an attempt to alter the 
institutional
treatment of contemporary art in Serbia. The project is conceived
as a joint project of the Museum and Centre for Contemporary Arts -
Belgrade. The show aims at establishing, re-establishing and confirming
communication among artists and curators in Serbia, in the region, and
internationally. For this first show of the Museum we are inviting local 
artists
who have not had any opportunity to exhibit in a "main-stream" art space 
during the
last ten years, as well as those distinguished international artists with whom
we have been in a certain form of conversation (professional collaboration, 
personal
meetings, correspondence) throughout the last ten years that have been 
marked by
war, trauma, isolation and break of even basic communication. The subtitle
'Short-Notice Show' describes the situation we have, as curators, found
ourselves in. Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade is dedicated to be
open to projects that will avoid the usual slowness and insipidness of
institutions of this kind. We feel that it is important for the local scene 
to re-open
the Museum with the international show in which participants
will be artists who take an active role in establishing new links within
international art networks, and take a critical attitude towards the
status of these networks. The opening of the exhibition is scheduled for
October 20, commemorating the day when in 1944 Tito's Partisans along with
the Red Army liberated Belgrade from the Nazi occupation and its quisling
government.


Why KONVERZACIJA?
In many of its meanings, the term conversation is first of all taken to
denote an informal interchange of thoughts, and to signal the ability to
open that interchange within an isolationist environment. Conversation
will take place in many different aspects during preparing, mounting and
interpreting this show. Given that to converse implies a verbal act, it
cannot be literally taken as the theme of the show. However, most of the
invited artists employ forms of conversation in juxtaposing sometimes
opposed lines of thoughts and discourses. It is our intention to present
social and personal implications of this talk with others. The Latin word
conversare means to turn constantly, which is precisely the aspect of
contemporary art we want to put forward: an ability to turn positions
through mutual interchange of ideas and actions.
Finally, another origin of the word was also important to confirm the title of
this show: conversari in Latin means to keep company with. This exhibition is
an homage to, sometimes aborted, cooperation during the traumatic period we
tend to exit but not to forget, the period we tend to analyse by not being
brought into line with fixed "solutions".

The space.
The exhibition will be held in the modernist building of the Museum
near the bank of the river Sava across the Kalemegdan fortress. The internal
space is organised as an open plan exhibition space at various levels
interconnected by a central staircase, with no corridors or dividing walls.
The continuity of the space allows views over the different levels from the
ground floor to the topmost gallery. The building represents an example of
eminently modern architecture of the late 1950s/early 1960s

The catalogue.
The show will be accompanied by a catalogue planned to be ready for the
opening. The catalogue will consist of short introductory texts and artists'
pages with illustrations, short CVs and artists' statements.

List of participating artists:
AES, Dejan Andelkovic & Jelica Radovanoviæ, Huseyin Bahri Alptekin,
Breda Beban, Luchezar Boyadziev, Phil Collins, Mirjana Djor›eviæ, Biljana
Djurdjeviæ, Uro? Djuriæ, Tomo Saviæ Gecan, Dejan Grba, Kendell Geers,
Roza el Hassan, Aleksandar Iliæ, Zdravko Joksimoviæ, Dragan Jovanoviæ, Dejan
Kaludjeroviæ, Ivana Keser, Miodrag Krkobabiæ, Zsolt Kovacs, Marko
Kovaèiè, Yuri Leiderman, Aleksandar Maæa?ev, Nikoleta Markoviæ,
Goranka Matiæ, Era Milivojeviæ, Mihael Milunoviæ, Oliver Musovik, Zoran
Naskovski, Vladimir Nikoliæ, Vesna Pavloviæ, Dan Perjovschi, Marjetica
Potrè, Anri Sala, Jayce Salloum, Neboj?a ©eric ©oba, ©kart, Balint Szombathy,
Nata?a Teofiloviæ, Zoran Todoroviæ, Ra?a Todosijeviæ, Milica Tomiæ,
Marija Vauda, Vera Veèanski, Dragana ®arevac.


Project by:
Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade
Centre for Contemporary Art - Belgrade


Curatorial team.
Branislava Andjelkoviæ, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade
Branislav Dimitrijeviæ, Centre for Contemporary Art - Belgrade
Dejan Sretenoviæ, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade


Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade
Usce Save bb.
11070 Novi Beograd
Serbia

October 20 - December 2, 2001