HEKLER Medium | Among Women: Contemporary Art from Serbia
Online artist presentations, performances and discussions.
Sunday December 5th and Saturday December 11th, 12-2pm EST / 18-20h CET
Image: Among Women: Contemporary Art from Serbia, 937 Gallery in Pittsburgh. Credit: Renee Rosensteel
We are happy to welcome you to the upcoming online events organized in support of the Among Women: Contemporary Art from Serbia, a group exhibition featuring artworks by eleven Belgrade-based artists: Šejma Fere, Bojana S. Knežević, Marina Marković, Tijana Radenković, Simonida Rajčević, Vahida Ramujkić, Milica Ružičić, Maja Simić, Nina Todorović, Anica Vučetić, and Gordana Žikić. Exhibition curated by Rachel Klipa is on view at 937 Gallery in Pittsburgh through January 9th, 2022.
As a transnational community, HEKLER holds space for weaving of positionalities stemming from the ongoing exhibition where we will learn about individual and collective practices of nine artists - poetic, embodied, critical, feminist, and activist. Working with a variety of media across disciplines, artists mutually amplify both micro and macro power relations between body, institution, the city, and the State, as well as the role of cultural work in claiming personal and collective agency. We look forward to these conversations as continuous work and invitation for art and cultural workers to share, discuss and collectively imagine equitable futures.
Artist presentations, performances and discussions
Organized and moderated by artists Nataša Prljević and Farideh Sakhaeifar.
Sunday December 5th, 12-2pm EST / 18-20h CET
Anica Vučetić, Gordana Žikić, Tijana Radenković, Marina Marković, Bojana S. Knežević
Saturday December 11th, 12-2pm EST / 18-20h CET
Maja Simić, Milica Ružičić, Nina Todorović, Vahida Ramujkić with collaborators Tijana Cvetković (Minipogon) and Aviv Kruglanski (Documentary Embroidery and Microcultures)
Among Women: Contemporary Art from Serbia features artworks by eleven women artists who are deeply connected to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. Once part of the former Yugoslavia, Serbia’s artists remain on the periphery of the global, contemporary art scene; however, the women presented here come from a long line of thoughtful and accomplished arts and cultural practitioners that span Serbia’s complex history. Shown together, the artworks produced by these women provide a snapshot of Belgrade's productive and multilayered contemporary art scene from the perspective of some of its women artists. From the onset, it’s important to note that there are more women artists from Belgrade and other parts of Serbia than what could be presented here.
Link to the exhibition guide.
Rachel Klipa is an arts administrator, curator, and writer.
Among Women: Contemporary Art from Serbia is supported by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts, a partnership between the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council.
ABOUT ARTISTS
Maja Simić
is a printmaker who has exhibited widely throughout Europe, China, and ex-Yugoslavia. Simić received her Ph.D. in printmaking from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade. She is the recipient of numerous awards for printmaking, and she currently teaches at the University of Novi Sad.
https://www.saatchiart.com/mayasimic
Image: On Dry Land 1, 2, 3, 2002/2020 Digital prints on canvas, 39.3” x 82.6”
completed her Ph.D. in 2014 at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade. Since 1995, she has exhibited work in 47 solo exhibitions and more than 200 group exhibitions. Todorović is the winner of several national and international awards; her works can be found in public, private, and museum collections.
Image: Pattern Recognition (Deconstruction) I – V, 2017 Digital prints on acrylic (5 pieces), 48” x 71”
Milica Ružičić
is a multimedia conceptual artist. Ružičić received her Doctorate of Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade. She has held thirteen solo exhibitions, and has participated in over 70 exhibitions worldwide, including but not limited to: Austria, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Montenegro, Serbia, and the United States. She was an artist-in-residence at the International Studio & Curatorial Program in New York City, and was the recipient of the Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos Award in 2004. Ružičić currently teaches at the College of Fine and Applied Arts, Professional Studies in Belgrade.
https://milicaruzicic.wordpress.com/
Image: Annual, 2004 Eleven digitally altered photographs, 11.8” x 15.7”
Vahida Ramujkić
develops methodologies for collective work by focusing on social issues and the social function of art. Her time is divided between projects such as the Rotorrr collective, ‘Disputed Histories,’ and ‘Documentary Embroidery’ in collaboration with Aviv Kruglanski. She completed her Ph.D. in 2018 at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade, and commits her time to other collective initiatives such as No Name Kitchen, ReEX, and Irational.org.
Image: Documentary Embroidery Office Kaludjerica from A to Ш, 2010 Embroidered tapestry, 6’ x 6’
Minipogon
Collective consisting of artists, activists and scientists working on an experimental production recycling plant that explores alternative methods of production, cooperative relationships, self-management and develops the concept of equity with an economic foothold. It is a project that implies intervention in the field of work (in culture), its deconstruction and a new creation within the marginal and discarded. The production plant for making objects from recycled plastic works through inclusion of marginal social groups (unemployed middle-aged women, refugees, etc.) and as a 'resources' uses the rejected and by-products of a modern capitalist society, whether it's raw materials (plastic waste) or 'human resources' (refugees as a direct consequence of globalization, the unemployed, etc.). In this sense, the project is trying to create a field for the production of new values, but also to create a place where the politicization of production relations will be practically feasible and possible. We are discussing an intervention in order to create material conditions for social equity, rather than as it is common practice in a liberal culture, irrespective of them.
Presented by Tijana Cvetković
Real-time Documentary Embroidery
Using real-time documentary embroidery (with no sketches or previous planning) is a challenge in the field of drawing, regarding the representation of reality. The restrictions imposed by the technique: the slowness of constructing a line, one stitch at a time, forces us to economize and abstract, limiting our choices, making us consider and select the most important thing to represent. By this we are forced to follow a process of encrypting, creating symbolic graphics where details and decorations are considered excess.
bbva collects joint research projects of Aviv Kruglanski and Vahida Ramujkić
Simonida Rajčević
finished her Ph.D. in art at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade in 2015. She obtained a DAAD stipend to do her postgraduate studies in Berlin, Germany. Since 2000, she has been working as an associate professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. From 2008 until 2010 she worked as a guest associate professor at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade. Rajčević has exhibited her work in solo and group shows, both in Serbia and abroad.
https://simonidasimonida.com/
Image: Strange Waves 11, 2016 Oil on linen, 62.9” x 79.9”
Anica Vučetić
was born in Belgrade. Her works consist of video installations and created video environments. Vučetić obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions around the globe, and has had solo exhibitions in Europe and Latin America. Vučetić is also the recipient of several art awards.
https://anicavuc.wixsite.com/anicavucetic
Image: Creation II, 2013/2017 Video projection; loop 2’ 27’’
Gordana Žikić
is a visual artist and the founder of Belgrade Artist in Residence. Born in Belgrade, she is a shamanic artist who studies and incorporates traditions and innovations in Shamanism and Neo-Shamanism. Žikić completed her doctorate in 2018 at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade. She is a member of the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia (ULUS) and exhibits nationally and internationally.
https://gordanazikic.wordpress.com/
Image: Red Deer Altar, 2018 Mixed media, Sizes vary
Tijana Radenković
received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade, and she completed her Ph.D. in 2021. Her work examines the identity, problem, function, and perception of the human body, beauty, and ideals. Using the methods of collecting, archiving, and bacteria sampling, Radenković deals with the issues of the stability of things and organisms in personal space, but also the space that individuals share with others, questioning borders on the micro and macro levels.
https://cargocollective.com/tijanaradenkovic
Image: Perfect Time, 2017 Seven photographs on paper, 19.6” x 19.6”
Marina Marković
earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in new media art. Marković has exhibited in Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Serbia, and the United States. She was an artist-in-residence at the International Studio & Curatorial Program in New York City, Triangulation in Tirana, Albania and Q21 - MuseumsQuartier in Vienna. Marković was a recipient of the Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos Award in 2011 and the Vladimir Veličković drawing award in 2021.
Image: To please, serve, and obey, 2020 Three ink drawings on paper, 27” x 118”
Bojana S. Knežević
is a multimedia artist, performer, and facilitator of participatory art projects; she defines herself as a performer-recycler. Knežević holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in new media arts from the Department of Fine Arts, Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia. She completed her doctoral degree (Interdisciplinary doctoral art studies - Digital Art), from the University of Arts in Belgrade. She is the co-founder of FEMKANJE, a radio show/podcast, art and media project dedicated to contemporary art, culture, and feminism in Europe.
https://bojanasknezevic.com/
Image: A Queen of Montenegro (Self-portrait), 2018/2020 Digital print on canvas, 48” x 60”
Šejma Fere
graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade with degrees in painting and printmaking. She was awarded the Onassis Foundation Distinction Prize for Painting in 2006, and a scholarship to the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg in 2017. Fere explores the borders of intimate and public relations to mass media, market systems, and consumer culture. She lives and works in Belgrade.
Image: Toothbrushes, 2005 – 2020 Twenty-five digital prints on wood planks, 3.1” x 17.7”