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Nemanja Cvijanović: Do not fuck with
Social Democracy, 2011. Courtesy of the
artist.
DO NOT
FUCK WITH SOCIAL DEMOCRACY!
Nemanja Cvijanović
July 27, 2011 – August
28, 2011
You are most kindly invited to the
opening on
Wednesday, 27th July, at
20.00 at Škuc Gallery.
Today, in a time of
prevalent social and political apathy,
when it seems that the only solutions
for the ‘liberation’ of society are
either incitements to hatred or drinking
cold beer in the shade of the lime
trees, the Croatian visual artist
Cvijanović presents his new project in
Škuc Galley. The artist’s recognisable
visual language constitutes some sort of
‘heritage’ and original evolution of the
extremely convincing and recognisable
period of Croatian conceptual art of the
1960s and 70s. At the subject level,
Cvijanović focuses mainly on current
political, economic and social issues,
which he seeks to juxtapose with
history, ideology, and the art system.
His work includes a fair share of
criticism and humour, which is very rare
in contemporary art, appearing only
sporadically since the Fluxus movement
in the 1960s. Cvijanović‘s work balances
engagement with current issues,
criticism and humour, and can therefore
be read at several levels, which makes
it very effective.
The show in Škuc Gallery
includes only the latest work, entitled
Do not fuck with Social Democracy!,
which is a visual and sound installation
extending throughout the gallery. Like
some of his other works, it seems like a
metaphor with which he is striving to
draw attention to the dangers of the
ideological mechanisms lurking in the
individual. The ‘surrender’ of the
individual in a society provides the
best platform for the emergence of
radical statements based on the
manipulation and abuse of ideas and
teachings. Cvijanović’s work in Škuc
Gallery conveys this directly,
symbolically revealing the ideological
mechanism, as well as directly involving
the viewers, thus highlighting the
significance of their role in society.
Upon entering the gallery, the viewers
find themselves within some sort of
riddle, as the space is almost
completely void and exists mainly on a
symbolic level. The installation
resembles a spatial rebus, where the
viewer receives a key during their first
walk around the gallery space, with the
help of which they ‘complete’ the
exhibition experience outside the
gallery space. By juxtaposing the empty
gallery space and symbols, Nemanja
Cvijanović emphasises the conceptual
level of the work, discouraging a
physical contemplation of it. The main
motif of the exhibition is a white flag,
whose symbolic origin dates back almost
two thousand years, when it was first
waved as a sign of surrender on a
battlefront of the Han dynasty. The
surrender, the short moment between the
transition from one ideology to another,
a moment of silence when the individual
is completely void of everything and
therefore, naturally, is most
vulnerable. With Cvijanović’s
intervention, the white flag as a symbol
of surrender is transformed into a
revolutionary and ideologically coloured
red. In relation to the viewer, the
gallery works as a space of ideology
which is impossible to avoid, while the
ideology’s deceit is so obvious that it
is impossible to exit without any
difficulties. It is precisely this point
of symbolic transition, the
transformation of the emptied white flag
into red and back, that is the main
message of Cvijanović’s installation and
the trap he sets for the viewer.
In addition to
successfully continuing the tradition of
Croatian conceptual art, Nemanja
Cvijanović is one of those artists who
has continuously reflected upon the
state of society and held a mirror up to
it. Although the installation Do not
fuck with Social Democracy!
particularly exposes the issue of the
abuse of social democracy, it is a
metaphor for abuse by any kind of
ideological mechanism. The individual
segments of the installation are
formally executed so that the main motif
of the exhibition, the white flag can
become not only red, but also black,
green, yellow or blue with only minimal
intervention. This presents the
spectator with a question about the
differences between different political
ideologies and their mechanisms of
manipulation. Above all, the work of
Nemanja Cvijanović draws attention to
the responsibility of the individual in
relation to detecting contemporary
social reality, the reality of historic
memory and the establishment of value
systems.
Curated by:
Tevž
Logar
You are also most kindly
invited to the
closing event, the informal
talk with the artist, Nemanja
Cvijanović, with food and drinks.
The event will take place on Saturday,
August 27th, at 15.00.
The project is supported
by the City of
Rijeka, City Department of Culture.
The
programme of Škuc Gallery is supported
by Ministry of
Culture of the Republic of Slovenia
and
Cultural Department of the City of
Ljubljana.
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