The exhibition is organized as a collaboration between Apoteka and KCB Belgrade Cultural Center.
Curator: Zorana Đaković Minniti, KCB
The idea for the curatorial-artistic research for the exhibition Decade Collection comes from the consideration and positioning of the October Salon Collection, shaped around one of the most important group exhibitions in the cultural space of ex-Yugoslavia. The idea relies on understanding the exhibition and the collection as „living“ structures coming to be and changing in relation to the immediate social context. This exhibition is looking into how the collection affects the artistic scene in its surroundings, how it defines it and how it inspires further artistic contemplation and production of artworks. It explores the relations between the works in the collection and those centered around the very exhibition of the October Salon. Research work included using the catalogue archive of the October Salon, the book of critical reviews of exhibitions held at the Salon „Pažnja kritika“ (Attention critique), newspaper articles, the collection of the October Salon and the collection of the Kulturni Centar Beograda as well as the visual and oral archive we found in institutional spaces, offices, closets, archive and conversations with the witnesses of times in which this manifestation was shaped.
The exhibition develops around a couple of works from the collection of the October Salon by Dubravka Sekulić, Annika Ström, Ljubica Cuca Sokić and Anssi Kasitonni in a dialogue with the newly produced film Passage to the Actual by Siniša Ilić, realized especially for the exhibition in Apoteka, within the said research, and starting from elements seemingly marginally conected to the collection of the October Salon. Siniša Ilić reflects upon the socio-political context through the selected archive photographs presenting them as models of society and the different forms of its institutioins. In his work, Ilić takes the limitations of the institutional frameworks and draws them through a filter of performative activities, bringing them gradually in a more direct contact with a wider context. Among other issues, those brought forth by this exhibition, like visual arts manifestations, collections and similar structures, are given the possibility to be contemplated further. The addressed topics like the tranformations as a consequence of socio-political circumstances, the relationship between the public and the work of art/exhibition and the deviations from the rules are also topics arising from activities around the collection.
The exhibition is organized in the framework of Apoteka’s ongoing programme line This is (not) a Museum, that gathers artistic positions addressing the issues of collecting, collections, institutional practices, „exhibiting“, as a series of interrelations in the temporary surroundings of the exhibition/gallery space.
The project is curated by Branka Benčić, artistic director, Apoteka – Space for Contemporary Art.
The project is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, the Istrian County, the City of Vodnjan and the City of Belgrade.
Image credits:
Siniša Ilić: Passage to the Actual, video, 8.20 min/ Featuring Dušan Barbarić, Vladislava Djordjević Nataša Marković, photo Milutin Marković, 2018.