The Body of the Gallery – Identity of the Place
The Body of the Gallery – Identity of the Place
On the occasion of the first 75 years of the Graphic Collective
ARTISTS IN THE FIRST PERSON
40 laureates of the Great Seal
November 29 – December 19, 2024
Author’s exhibition by Ljiljana Ćinkul
The Graphic Collective celebrates its milestone anniversaries as festive yet working events, sublimating its artistic, cultural, moral, and material heritage structured into a visible cultural event. In the same spirit, the 75th anniversary of the Graphic Collective emphasizes the need to generate new creative energy and highlight the professional identity of this unique institution in national culture. In this context, the project The Body of the Gallery – Identity of the Place represents part of the authorial concept by Ljiljana Ćinkul, who approaches this year’s anniversary as a free creative dialogue in the visual field, featuring 40 distinct creative perspectives. The project’s title refers to the relocation of the Graphic Collective from its iconic address at Obilićev Venac 27 – the House of Graphics – and its prominent position on the cultural map of Belgrade (identity of the place), as well as the loss of the wooden paneling (the body of the gallery), a symbol and the substance in creating the identity of this House.
This is both a creative dialogue and an artistic document reflecting on the tradition of the Graphic Collective, pointing to the layered interconnection of conceptual ideas across the lines of historical/contemporary, traditional/current. Fragments of the “body of the gallery” – parts of the wooden paneling – represent material carriers of the “identity of the place” and energetic creative potentials that revitalize parts of the recognizable interior of the Gallery, designed by architect Predrag Ristić in 1963. The new creative context of this project – marked by the move to Dragoslava Jovanovića Street 11 – testifies to the preservation/nurturing of collective and/or individual memory codes of the artists, laureates of the Great Seal of the Graphic Collective. Notably, the span of their years (1935-1991) reflects the enduring values of authentic memories from different generations of Artists in the first person. In the ideationally developed creative process, the artists created multimedia projects – objects, installations, drawings, and graphic works – dedicating themselves to this cultural phenomenon from the authentic perspective of both actors and witnesses. With the intention that this project most effectively communicates in problematizing the Body and Identity, the artists, in addition to visual works included their own texts, serving as a form of documentation (memories, impressions, events, meetings, awards…) about the Gallery, a cult place that has lived for 69 years in the intimate, chamber-like space at Obilićev Venac 27.
The monument to the Spirit of the House is also represented by iconic statements from notable figures (writers, critics, actors, directors, friends…) for whom the Collective was more than a Gallery; their authentic testimonies about the life of the Collective and its activist lines, tangents, of the very centre of contemporary culture, are written on the walls of the gallery forming an integral part of this work. The entire project is dedicated to the New Life in the New Space, with the belief that the mission of the Graphic Collective will continue to live on, both conceptually and institutionally, in the new millennium. Indeed, the very act of creation itself and life in the art is the victory.
