60TH OCTOBER SALON: HOPE IS A DISCIPLINE
October 20 - December 1 2024
Curatorial team:
Lina Džuverović, Ana Knežević, Emilia Epštajn
About the exhibition:
Curatorial statement
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.
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
60TH OCTOBER SALON: WHAT'S LEFT?
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.
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.
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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. |
DISCOVER MORE...
RECORD OF THE TERMITE LANDSCAPE - Talk with artistic duo doplgenger
Wednesday, 13 November at 6 pm
"Record of the Termite Landscape" (2024) is a two-channel video installation displayed as part of 60th October Salon and the exhibition Hope is a discipline curated by Lina Džuverović, Ana Knežević and Emilia Epštajn. By combining newly-recorded and archival material, the doplgenger duo (Isidora Ilić and Boško Prostran) reconsiders representation of the “deep history” of minerals, as well as representation of the political history of the 20th Century. "Record of the Termite Landscape" is a video essay in which the authors observe images of socialist miners of the past and compare this past with the hidden representation of mining in capitalist society. By placing scenes of modern mining and the archival educational TV programme from the “Anticolonial Struggle” series in dialogue with the permanent exhibition of the Museum of African Art in 1977, doplgenger creates a space for new interpretations and critical understanding of cultural politics, global economy and education here and today. Entrance free.
THE HEALING - PERFORMANCE BY MWANA
- The Healing (Performance): Museum of African Art, October 31 at 6 PM
- Talk with the Artist: Gallery Artget, November 2, from 12 noon to 4 PM
Mwana is an Angolan visual artist who works with photography and installation, simultaneously re-examining social roles, experiences, and personal stories. In the performance The Healing, Mwana reinterprets feminist sisterhood and creates a healing ritual among women. The ritual unfolds in ten steps: empathy, solidarity, support, respect, friendship, protection, unity, empowerment, healing, and nurturing. Each step symbolizes and is accompanied by a verse, culminating in a collective poem titled “Guardians”.
60TH OCTOBER SALON: ONE EXHIBITION, THREE CONCEPTS
"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."
Members of the Board of the October Salon:
Vuk Vidor, President
Gordana Goncić
Zorana Đaković Minniti
Danica Jovović Prodanović
Mihael Milunović
Founder and patron: City of Belgrade
Organized by the Cultural Center of Belgrade
Supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia
Partners:
Museum of African Art
Museum of the City of Belgrade
Faculty of Fine Arts
Gallery of the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia (ULUS)
Gallery of the Union of Fine Artists of Yugoslavia (SULUJ)
Liceulice
La Biennale de Lyon
Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon
Chelsea College of Art, University of the Arts, London
Museum of Modern Art, Bologna
Supported by:
Italian Council
British Council
Danish Arts Foundation
French Institute, Serbia
Italian Cultural Institute in Belgrade
Austrian Cultural Forum
La Boîte
Alma Quattro
Program support:
Hestia
Infomedia Group
Cveće zla
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
