NEWS and EVENTS

 

60TH OCTOBER SALON: WHAT'S LEFT?

Opening: Sunday, October 20th 2024, at 6 p.m.

The 60th edition of the October Salon opens on the Liberation Day of Belgrade, October 20. This fall, until December 1, the audience will encounter three different concepts created by three international curatorial teams at several locations in Belgrade.

This year's edition of the October Salon, organized by the Cultural Center of Belgrade, takes place from October 20 to December 1. The event, which is being held for the 60th time this fall, is realized by three international curatorial teams with the slogan: "Šta ostaje?/What's left?”

Where and what is the space for art and artists? What's left — after we leave the exhibition spaces? What do big manifestations bring and what remains after them — ... as a path, process, continuity, discontinuity, goal? What's left after an exhibition? Then, what's left — after all the encounters? Artists with artists, art with the public, international and local curators, spaces with artworks?

Answers and new questions will be offered during the autumn by three curatorial teams through three curatorial concepts, which is the curiosity of this year's edition of the October Salon. Lorenzo Balbi, director of the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna — MAMbo, in collaboration with Dobrila Denegri, art historian and curator, will present a concept called Trace. Matthieu Lelièvre, curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon, in cooperation with Marijana Kolarić, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, will present the concept Aesthetic(s) of Encounter(s). The third concept, Hope is a discipline, was developed by Lina Džuverović, Senior Lecturer and Course Leader MA Curating and Collections at the Chelsea College of Arts, the University of Arts, London, in collaboration with Emilia Epštajn and Ana Knežević, curators at the Museum of African Art in Belgrade, and visual identity devised by Rafaela Dražić.

60th edition is prepared and realized in the spirit and with the idea of questioning the possibility of coexistence of different conceptions, as well as curatorial and artistic positions. The Board decided to accept three proposed conceptions after curators were invited to apply with their concepts. Such a decision was motivated by the need to continue the process of reviewing the way this manifestation functions," says Zorana Đaković Minniti, member of the October Salon Board and program director of the Cultural Center of Belgrade "The idea of coexistence is usually understood as a method without a clear policy, so the question is whether it can fundamentally improve something within one manifestation. It is needed for all of us to think about it more actively by searching for an answer to the question from the title of the exhibition What’s left? — what remains, having in mind the additional meaning that it has in English (what's the left today?). Since there is still no central exhibition space for the October Salon, nor was any of the existing ones in Belgrade available for use, the galleries of the Cultural Center of Belgrade will be the spaces where these three concepts will be physically closest to each other."

The visual identity of the 60th October Salon was designed by the graphic designer and visual artist Slavimir Stojanović Futro. "I wanted to make the visual part look like a kind of urban forest. I used symbols that are graphically very reduced, and each of them represents one of the three special curatorial exhibitions: Trace, Hope is а Discipline and Aesthetic(s) of Encounter(s). When you say the names, these three concepts sound like three books you need to read. A clean, abstract graphic method resembling pictograms, where arrows determine the directions, directly illustrates the titles themselves and connects three stories. I played further by using a color palette which could almost be described as ugly, which even seems incongruous and inappropriate, it even hurts a little. But without the pain, nothing good can happen, because art is always there to ask us the most difficult questions, which is also the case with the slogan What’s left?" Slavimir Stojanović Futro, the creator of this year's visual identity of the October Salon, was also the author of the graphic design of the 36th October Salon, which was realized exactly 30 years ago, in 1994.

The exhibition spaces that will be open to the public from October 20 at 1 p.m. are the following: the Cultural Center of Belgrade, Pavilion in Cvetni trg, the Gallery of the Faculty of Fine Arts (FLU), the former Akademija club, the Gallery of the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia (ULUS), the Gallery of the Union of Fine Artists of Yugoslavia (SULUJ), Salon of the Museum of the City of Belgrade, Museum of African Art, windows of the French Institute and public spaces in the city.

The media conference will be held on Friday, October 18, at 12.00 p.m., in the Cultural Center of Belgrade and an organized tour of the exhibitions (in different locations) with the presence of artists and curators will be held on Saturday, October 19, at 5.00 p.m.

 

HOPE IS A DISCIPLINE

Curatorial statement: Lina Džuverović, Ana Knežević, Emilia Epštajn

Hope is not just a feeling. Hope is an action, rooted in the assumption that there is always a potential for transformation and change. Drawing on the educator and activist Mariame Kaba’s slogan Hope is a Discipline, as well as the legacy and social values of the Non-Aligned Movement, we will work with artists, networks and grassroots initiatives from within and beyond the cultural sphere to propose art as a connective tissue in the fostering of solidarity and mutual support.

Artists and groups will use the working process, exhibition and discursive programme to explore the potential of subtle micropolitical artistic acts as coping mechanisms in the face of current exploitative corporate takeover of life, repressive and harmful political tendencies and environmental challenges.

An important aspect of the project is its pace, resisting the tendency of large exhibitions to overproduce, speed up and stretch capacities.

Project design by Rafaela Dražić.

Artists and Groups:

Adrian Melis Sosa
And Others: The Gendered Politics and Practices of Art Collectives
Darinka Pop-Mitić
doplgenger
Feminist Duration Reading Group (FDRG)
Jelena Micić
Jelena Savić
Karavan
Kathrin Böhm
Kiluanji Kia Henda
Milica Dukić
Milica Ružičić
Mwana

 

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Media contact: Ljiljana Ilić, coordinator for communication and media, +381.63.368.335 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

For more information: www.oktobarskisalon.org

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