Positions in Contemporary Art
14 individual views – 14 artists – 14 countries of the Danube Region
Artists: Biljana Djurdjević, Serbia | Magdalena Jetelová, Czech Republic| Julian Palacz, Austria | Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová, Slovakia | István Csákány, Hungary | Mladen Miljanović, Bosnia & Herzegovina | Igor Grubić, Croatia | Tadej Pogačar, Slovenia | Herbert Stolz, Germany | Ivanov Pravdoliub, Bulgaria | Lazar Pejović, Montenegro | Alexandra Croitoru, Romania | Pavel Brăila, Moldova | Ivan Bazak, Ukraine
Special Artists: Biljana Djurdjević, Andrea Palašti, Serbia
Curator:
Regina Hellwig-Schmid, artistic director of donumenta and “14×14”
Duration: 28th August – 24th September 2014
Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina in Novi Sad, Serbia
Opening Hours of the museum:
Tuesday – Friday, 10 am – 4 pm; Saturday and Sunday: 10 am – 2pm.
From 28th August 2014, under the formula ’14 x 14 – A Survey of the Danube Region – Individual vielws’, the donumenta will be presenting for four weeks photographic and cinematic works from outstanding artists from the 14 countries of the Danube region. It is not simply that new and unusual viewpoints of the individual countries of origin are conveyed. Serbia too, becomes a focal point as an exciting place for contemporary art.
Sponsored by the Bavarian State Government, donumenta developed its international exhibition project, ’14 x 14 – A Survey of the Danube Region’ in the year 2012 in Regensburg on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the beginning of its widely acclaimed intercultural engagement for artists in the Danube Region. The focal point is the development and promotion in the EU macro region of international artistic events in close curatorial co-operation with museums, galleries and artists. In 2011, within the framework of a festival lasting several weeks, the donumenta devoted itself to the whole range of art and culture in Serbia. With the formula ’14 x 14’ the focus of the donumenta is now on the capability of the artists to take on responsibility and use their imagination to create new realities. Working on the premise that it is the artist who, in his work, surveys the world anew, the unprejudiced look at those who are different, and that which is different opens up new perspectives. In this context, the macro region ‘Danube’ with its 14 countries, proves to be an enormous laboratory with unique development possibilities for Europe.
In the exhibition now to be shown in the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, 14 contemporary, internationally renowned sculptors, painters, installation and media artists as well as a photographer reflect the realities, experiences and utopias of their home countries in 26 snapshots. Each artist has provided two photographs. These were made at the invitation of Regina Hellwig-Schmid, director and curator of the donumenta: According to her, “the formula ’14 x 14 – A Survey of the Danube Region’ expresses our invitation to the people of Europe to choose art as a parameter to take up the example of the Danube region to discover and reflect on individual, European and global realities and visions.”
A special honour will be given to Biljana Djurdjević in the exhibition at Novi Sad. Serbia’s internationally best-known and most successful painter, born in 1973, will be presenting her cinematic works to the public for the first time. The central focus is her large-scale painting ‘Dark in the Forest’, which she has redeveloped in film in which she confronts the viewer with underlying fears, mythological references and meaningful archaic scenarios. According to Biljana Djurdjević: “The dark forest is an allegory of our inner world in which we constantly live, irrespective of space and time. It represents that which we hope for and that which we fear and which is hidden from us. Doubt, fear and hopes shape and create this inner world in which emotions are sparked-off about which we frequently deceive ourselves”. Her work is accompanied by that of a regional artist, Andrea Palašti who was born in 1982 and lives in Novi Sad. Amongst other things, she will present to the public a new installation project.
About Donumenta
In the years from 2003 to 2011, the donumenta e.V. presented contemporary art from the countries along the Danube. Following the geographical flow of the river, the donumenta presented each year the spectrum of art and culture from a different country and in this way set off a continuing dialogue about identity and community in an expanding Europe: The Ukraine (2003), Moldova (2004), The Republic of Bulgaria (2005), the Republic of Austria (2006), Romania (2007), Croatia (2008), Slovakia (2009), Hungary (2010), Serbia (2011). In 2012, the EU Strategy for the Danube Region in mind, donumenta e.V. extended its area of action to include all 14 countries of the Danube basin and for the first time in Germany on the occasion of its 10th anniversary under the formula ’14 x 14 – A Survey of the Danube Region’ presented works of the most internationally renowned artists of all the countries within the framework of an exhibition lasting several weeks in addition to an international symposium under the title ‘ Danube – Whereto?’