Thе issue focuses on relationships between contemporary digital technologies and the production, distribution, interpretation, and use of images and evidence of war in order to explore the nexus of aesthetics and violence. In response to this in times of war, marginalisation, and exclusion, we present a number of essays, interviews, and contributions that address these and many other contemporary issues, within the new double issue 37/38 of The Large Glass, a journal of contemporary art, culture and theory.
In this issue, Tihomir Topuzovski (editor-in-chief), Matthew Fuller (guest editor), and co-editors Nada Prlja and Sofia Grigoriadou have invited contributions from: Sonja Abadžieva, Sara Ahmed, Sofia Bempeza, Lilie Chouliaraki, Juliet Jacques, Oksana Karpovets, Amal Khalaf, Sami Khatib, Kati Kivinen, Ioana Leca, Tevž Logar, Ibrahim Mahama, Chus Martinez, Matt Packer, Martin Schibbye, Ivana Sidjimovska, Igor Simões, Eszter Szakacs, Morten Søndergaard, Kyveli-Lignou Tsamantani, Himmat Zoubi, and Blanca de la Torre in order to elaborate on topics related to this issue.
The issue also features artworks by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Maria Auxiliadora da Silva, fantastic little splash, Barbara Hammer, Juliana Huxtable, Ibrahim Mahama, Jovan Josifovski, The.Out.s, Sergiy Petlyuk, Dineo Seshee Bopape, and others.
MoCA-Skopje exhibitions: Dan and Lia Perjovschi, curator and text by Mira Gacina; The Event of A Thread: Global Narratives in Textile, co-curator and text by Jovanka Popova (co-curators Susanne Weiß and Inka Gressel); Jonas Staal’s Propaganda Station, curator and text by Ivana Vaseva; Coordinates of a Dream: 60 Years of Projecting Contemporaneity MoCA-Skopje curators and text by Vladimir Janchevski and Blagoja Varoshanec.
Read from this issue:
Interview with artistic directors of the 3rd Helsinki Biennial – Kati Kivinen (Head of Exhibitions at HAM Helsinki Art Museum) and Blanca de la Torre (Director of IVAM – Institut Valencià d’Art Modern). Inteview conducted by Nada Prlja.
The new volume of The Large Glass Magazine No. 35/36 intends to provoke debates regarding the present challenges in critical museology. Triggered by the ‘MoCA Skopje’ collection in Kunsthalle Vienna in 2023, it represents an effort to return our attention to the critical approaches and ways of questioning curatorial practices, museum collections, gallery spaces, and audiences. The issue provides insights and appreciation concerning the relations between critical museums, self-reflexivity, the representation of cultural diversities, practices of decolonization, and museology in more-than-human worlds.
The contributors to this issue are Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius, Jesus Pedro Lorente, Sonja Abadžieva, Bojana Piškur, Adam Nocek, Marija Đorgović, Fiona R. Cameron, and the collective What, How & for Whom/WHW, etc.
Еditor-in chief: Tihomir Topuzovski
Assistant editors: Ivana Vaseva and Vladimir Janchevski
Layout: Denis Saraginovski
Pages: 150
Content:
6
Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius:
The Critical Museum Postscriptum
12
Pedro Jose Lorente:
Self-reflective Museums and (meta)Museographical
Reappraisals: The Special Case of
Museums of Contemporary Art
20
Bojana Piškur:
Some thoughts on decolonizing the art institutions
26
Marija Đorgović:
From a Critique of the Institution to a Critical Institution?
The Case of the Museum of Yugoslavia
33
Sonja Abadžieva:
At the Center of the Cyclone
38
What, How & for Whom/WHW
No Feeling Is Final. The Skopje Solidarity Collection
52
Fiona R. Cameron:
Curating and Museologies in More-than-Human Worlds
59
Research and Exhibition Project:
Landscape of Anxiety
102
Adam Nocek:
On the Architectures of Hospitality in
Agroecological Urbanisms
114
The MoCA’s exhibition
All That We Have in Common
Jovanka Popova
124
The MoCA’s exhibition
Bitter Sugar
Multimedia project by Gjorgje Jovanovik
Vladimir Janchevski and Blagoja Varoshanec
134
The MoCA’s exhibition
The Future as a Project
Doxiadis in Skopje
Jovan Ivanovski, Vladimir Deskov,
Ana Ivanovska Deskova, Kalliopi Amygdalou,
Kostas Tsiambaos, Tea Damjanovska, Mihajlo
Stojanovski and Christos Kritikos.
142
The MoCA’s exhibition
On Defragmentation as a Freeing Mental Space and
Societal Necessity
Vladimir Janchevski and Blagoja Varoshanec
This special issue of the Large Glass offers insights into diverse aspects of Romani-related themes and contributes to the contemporary debate and visual articulations regarding the social (in)visibility of Roma people. The (in)visibility of the Roma is positioned in diverse social contexts, including modes of agency, strategies of recognition, and forms of artistic and cultural representations. In many cases the representations strengthen the otherness of a particular people, resulting in a situation whereby these groups become increasingly isolated, shrinking at the societal edges. This shrinking visibility is important in understanding how certain groups might be considered as being excluded from their surroundings, detained in the betweenness of (in)visibility, conditions that can be defined as organized and systematic violence. Thus, this special issue offers various aspects and approaches to Romani culture for scholars and artists in the field of Romani Studies and recognizes the urgent need to readdress the position of Roma people when most projects for their integration have failed and much remains to be done in terms of the humanitarian response and ethical human commitments. The set of topics presented in this volume through texts and artistic projects related to a wide range of important themes, such as the Romani history, different cultural contexts, traditions and customs rooted in the past, and crucially engaged art projects that reflect on the complex connotations and contest the existing paradigm.
The contributors to this issue are Daniel Baker, Kimmo Granqvist, Joanna Warsza, Eszter György, Joost Vandebrug, Suzana Milevska, Ivana Hadjievska, Monika Weychert, Mihail Stojanoski, Amanda Boetzkes, Mira Gakjina.
Editor: Tihomir Topuzovski
Layout: PrivatePrint
The publication of the journal is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia
This volume of the ‘Large Glass’ compares various contributions on ‘The new reality’, a reality, which has been shaped by events throughout 2020 and 2021. Starting from the early period of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns, closed borders coupled with forms of social antagonism, struggles, discrimination and exclusion of people from economic activity and political participation, as well as the ongoing climate emergency and ecological destruction. This challenging context not only creates a political emergency, but also an artistic state of emergency.
Contributors to this volume
John Paul Ricco, Paula Serafini, Jonas Staal and Florian Malzacher, Shiraz Grinbaum and Oren Ziv, Fares Chalabi, Alfredo Cramerotti, Igor Štromajer, Boris Groys, Mira Gakjina, Nemanja Cvijanović, Vladimir Janchevski, Catherine Nichols, Kim Skjoldager-Nielsen, Yane Calovski and Hristina Ivanoska, Valentino Dimtrovski, Zoran Petrovski, Liljana Nedelkovska.
Editor of the Large Glass: Tihomir Topuzovski
Layout: PrivatePrint
The Large Glass Journal is printed with the support of the Ministry of Culture
The present volume of The Large Glass Journal 29/30 published in 2020 delineates ‘the migrant flows at the edge of artistic-political’and it comprises three parts ‘MIGRANT ARTS AS PRACTICES OF BEING POLITICAL, ‘MAPPING BORDERS AND FLOWS’ and ‘INTO THE DETENTION CENTRES AND PLACES OF SHRINKING VISIBILITIES’. This contributes to the contemporary debate and visual articulations regarding the on-going displacement and exclusions that are happening today and where much remains to be done in terms of the humanitarian response.
The contributors to this issue are Thomas Nail, Stefan Jonsson, Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary, Maggie O’Neill, John Perivolaris, Richard Mosse, Nishat Awan, Nicolas Lambert, Krista Lynes, Zineb Sedira, Allan deSouza, Francis Alys, Robert Atanasovski, Bishnupriya Ghosh, MINIPOGON, Laurent Gutierrez, Valerie Portefaix and Franco “Bifo” Berardi.
Editor-in-Chief: Tihomir Topuzovski
Layout: PrivatePrint
The publication of the journal is supported by the Ministry of Culture of Republic of North Macedonia
The Large Glass Journal is printed in English language
The new issue of The Large Glass No.27/28 is composed as a kind of collection of works of authors that range across a spectrum moving from humanist approaches to posthumanism (or anti-anthropocentrism), including a range of thematic discussions, artistic projects, and essays discussing, contextualizing and criticizing various issues that bring together scholars of cultural studies, art history, politics, geography, philosophy, and related disciplines together with artists, allowing for a broad range of insights into the topic both historically and in the contemporary context. The volume comprises three key sections linked directly or tangentially consisting of a compilation of approaches and synthesis of visual materials regarding posthuman corporeality, anxieties about the landscape and thematic ideas about the radical Political horizon.
These points are echoed in the work of many authors in their posthuman orientation, and this issue provides a preliminary framework for this combination of contributions to posthumanities and primarily explores their cultural and artistic implications. It shows that posthumanist debates are interrelated and thus require much more assembling, and in that sense, issue 27/28 of the Large Glass is an inherently interdisciplinary venture, which is why the volume of essays and artistic works includes contributions from a range of disciplines.
The Large Glass is being published again 23 years after its first issue and ten years since its last issue. The journal was first launched in 1995 by Sonja Abadzhieva, who became editor-in-chief, working with Liljana Nedelkovska, Zoran Petrovski, Marika Bocvarovska and many other collaborators to create a journal of art reviews and criticism.
The journal expanded on the initial ambition of the Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) to radiate new ideas and maintain the highest ethical and professional standards, but also signified a new beginning of constant reassessment through criticism and analysis of contemporary art.
With this relaunch it is crucial we are showing that the termination of The Large Glass was only temporary and that the pause has only served to complement its history – fractured like the artwork from which it derives its title: Duchamp’s The Large Glass. For this reason we have decided to mark this new beginning with focus on the current social challenges.
The Large Glass will act as one of the essential mediums of MoCA for the presentation, analysis and discussion of a wide range of current challenges and topics in culture, art and theory. Publishing the journal in English will also give the MoCA the opportunity to reach a wider range of creative and international environments and take part in other cultural, artistic and academic communities. This will extend the international recognition and cooperation of the Museum.
This commitment to contemporary art and international trends in art and criticism is in line with the original ideals and establishment of the MoCA, which was founded in 1964 as a modern museum fully engaged in dialogue with international authors and with a focus on the ever-changing challenges in the sphere of culture and art.
The revitalization of The Large Glass as a venture should confirm the reputation of MoCA Skopje as an institution with significant experience and a publisher in the area of contemporary art and critical thought.
Mira Gakina
Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje
Conceiving a vision of a different society, inventing new modes of ethical, political and aesthetic dimensions, is an increasingly difficult but pressing challenge. Artists are exceptional in this regard insofar as they demonstrate an intersection of creative routes and the formation of alternative visions. Artists have long taken an active role both in demonstrating their connections with social movements and political activism and in producing new imaginaries. The importance of such artistic practices can begin to be grasped when we consider what artists are already doing in terms of reinventing possibilities and generating new forms and knowledge – not only what we have already learnt but what we can still learn from their experiences, successes and failures. Working outside of established ‘common sense’, disputing and disrupting what is ‘visible’, artists express their strong disagreement and resistance to current conditions and alter our perceptions and understanding of a politically marked spatiality. They act in a field where ‘politics is first of all a battle about perceptible and sensible material’1 – one that revolves around what can be seen and sensed and by which politics is brought to visibility, so that it ‘renders an object, event, practice, or person at once visible and available for accountability.’2 The horizon of visibility in this context is shaped and framed by power relations: ‘Foucault illustrates that during different historical periods, distinct modes of visibility are produced by power in order to control society.’3 Hence state authorities and powerful bodies often develop the technology of a disciplinary order, or in Rancière’s words a ‘distribution of the sensible’, in order to impose their regime over visibility and modes of perception – a regime that ‘provides the political life of sensation.’4 This is enforced by decisions, policies and values driven by governing and powerful bodies. This leads us directly to Berkeley’s claim that ‘to be is to be perceived’5 – or in the specific thematic discussion that what is perceived in a society is associated with an ‘ontological ground’, or in this context into existence within the social sensorium.
The argument can be supported with examples of artists’ joint practices and modes of re-configuring sensory experiences, which enable some subject-agents to regulate what is visible and what is not. These practices counter and resist predominant political trends, whatever the political mainstream may be, through various forms of direct intervention. These acts can be delineated as ways and methods aimed at something arbitrarily below a social horizon of visibility, or else at provoking issues proscribed in relation to it. This calls for and entails the creation of a new vision, for perceiving new contours and participating and constructing moments beyond and counter to regimes of appraisal that ‘customarily organize the world, compelling us to have to reconfigure our own postures’6 in opposition to the world as it is. It includes reflections that provide an innovative and comprehensive understanding of the role of art, which in radical instances achieves ‘a collapse of the representational paradigm, which means not only the collapse of a hierarchical system of address; it means the collapse of a whole regime of meaning’.7
Accordingly, the main thematic scope of this edition of The Large Glass is that of activist art as a form of political protest. It is a common practice in urban landscapes, manifested in various actions, from the occupation of buildings to the use of walls for displaying messages, creating resistance that transforms public spaces. Examples include artists protesting in key public spaces to raise the visibility of certain communities such as refugees forced to leave their homes ‘because of war, environmental waste, and famine, marginalized and simultaneously subjected to a new form of slave exploitation8 at a time when, as Berardi points out: ‘the massive internment of migrant workers in detention centers disseminated all over the European territory dispels the illusion that the “camp” has been wiped out from the world.’9 The level of complexity of these artistic practices can be interpreted as a result of their being attempts to reassess the current visual horizon and to challenge existing boundaries of spaces of power. To some extent these efforts constitute a critique of museums and galleries as tools that serve to maintain the capitalist system and the ways in which capitalism commodifies artworks and instrumentalises artists. Some examples recently made public seem be the subject of great attention, such as cases where collective artistic groups and individuals have attempted to decolonise the domain of museums through direct interventions. This mode of acting is most evident in the case of interactions between protesters, artists and audiences in various movements in which artists have protested and occupied cultural institutions along with the movement. Aside from exploring the possibility of occupying museums, artists have redirected their creativity from instrumental participation in the art world to an expanded field of collaborations in order to produce a new vision and political imaginary.10 What this means is that practices interrupt ‘a set of principles by which a given society and art institutions are symbolically staged’11 and where specific visibility is experienced and meanings are established.
Other papers and reports in the second part of this issue highlight engaged visual methodologies that present an equally important approach, urging the use of visual materials and data to engage in concrete cases of symbolic, political and legal prosecutions. This is one way in which artistic practices can heighten public focus and connect artworks as a tool for visualising data and visions for justice founded upon evidence and intended to achieve profound effects. These actions are anchored in everyday political situations and have both a responsibility and intensity – aiming to challenge and reorganize societal visibility while pushing back what is hidden by official institutions. The ideas examined in this part relate to the recuperation of data and the rebuilding of an ‘image’ of what was the case before, which opens new possibilities for artists in creating a horizon of visibility, bringing visual data to light for public scrutiny and highlighting official concealment, neglect and distortion, as well as unjust and oppressive acts by state authorities and official narratives. The focus is on achieving a set of new interpretations, as in the case of Forensic Architecture, and this issue considers ways in which artists collaborate with scientists and follow technological developments to present visual data that can play a valuable role in legal forums. These methodologies have been used to highlight violations of humanitarian law and war crimes. This part of The Large Glass includes more extensive combinations of present, historical and comparative data and analysis, presenting some recent artistic works as well as theoretical insights that afford a deeper understanding of engaged art in this context.
The third part of this journal presents a sequence of different artistic works developed in relation to certain spatialities, thus contributing to an understanding of the ways in which politics and ideologies are associated with the organization of spaces and visibilities. These artistic examples highlight an important link between regimes over certain spaces as well as their inconsistency throughout history.
Along these lines, this issue of The Large Glass presents a range of contexts in which artistic practices coexist with further possibilities. As the following papers, interviews, reports and other materials show, the status of engaged artistic practices continues to raise questions in important debates and practices, especially reflecting on the complex connotations of artistic visions that challenge the paradigm.
Tihomir Topuzovski
Editor-in-Chief
Notes
The theme of the issue:
Content:
Editorial: Provincialisation and Degradation of the Public Space
Events: 52. Venice Biennial
Ljupka Deleva talks with Robert Storr
Blagoja Manevski: Logical Paintings (Crossing) – Republic of Macedonia at the 52nd Venice Biennial
Theme 1: (Non)Aesthetic of the Surrounding
Luchezar Boyadjiev – Bilboard Heaven | Aneta and Zivko Popovski – The Bridge
Artists Pages:
Lazo Plaveveski, Valentino Dimitrovski and Zoran Petrovski – “Shampita” Project
Theme 2: The Phenomena of the Laughter in the Macedonian Art |
Ljiljana Nedelkovska – On Laughter as a Form of Criticism | Marika Bocvarova – Lucid Art Reviews | Maja Cankulovska – The Drawing Today |
Lazo Plavevski – Returning from the green market I just thought of this …
Reviews:
Rodoljub Anastasov: Labaratory of the Informal | Atanas Botev |
Macedonian Video Art | Attitude – 2nd Video, Film and Photo Festival |
Atanas Atanasoski: Forms under the Dome | Irena Paskali: Urban Landscape | Oto Dix: Prints | 11th Winter Salon | US Express: Anthology of the American Video | Margarita Kiselicka Retrospective | Goce Nanevski: Fifty or Fifty | Iskra Dimitrova: Historyofasexuality | Blagoja Manevski : Logical Paintings – Here and Now | Dalibor Trencevski: Monolith | Verica Kovacevska: Endless Rhythm | Filip Fidanovski: Signs | Hommage to Jordan Grabul | Croatian Collection in the MoCA Skopje | Ilijana Petrusevska: It’s All a Dream | consciously simple: German Design | Marko Plavevski’s Photo Album | Aleksandra Petrusevska
Epilogue:
The Story – Ljiljana Nedelkovska
Content
Theme:
100 Years of Photography in Macedonia
Sonja Abadzieva: Brothers Manaki Photography Chrestomathy
Robert Jankuloski: Cabinet Portrait a la Macedoine (Zafir Oraskov, Hristo Dimkaroski, Miroslav Beljan)
Boris Petkovski: Blagoja Drnkov: Structure of the Detail
Valentino Dimitrovski: “The Existential Expression” in the Photographic Work of Zivko Janevski
Marika Bocvarova: Marin Dimeski: Psychology in the Artist’s Portraits
Lazo Plavevski: Ivo Veljanov: Is There a Look Present or Is There a Photographer Behind the Camera?
Sonja Abadzieva: Robert Jankuloski: In&Out of Photo
Photo Event:
Lazo Plavevski: Three Photographs by Aleksandar Kondev
International Exhibitions:
Photo-Essay: 51st Venice Biennale, Macedonian Pavillion in Palazzo Zorzi, Antoni Maznevski’s: Mozart’s Boat
Marika Bocvarova: The Exhibitions of Maria de Corral and Roza Martinez
Zaharinka Baceva: 26th International Graphic Biennial in Ljubljana
Maja Cankulovska: “The World is Yours”-9th International Istanbul Biennial
Mira Gacina: Tirana Biennial 3
Caricature:
Lazo Plavevski: Borders or Unprotected Virginity
Artists Pages:
Yane Calovski
In Memoriam:
Boris Petkovski 1931-2005 (Ljubica Damjanovska)
Publications:
Petar Mazev’s Bibliography by Liljana Nedelkovska (Marika Bocvarova)
Exhibitions:
Nehar Beqiri: Graffiti and Corridors; Irena Paskali: Space-Time Authenticity; Igor Tosevski: Free Territories; Not in the Sky, Nor in the Earth; Tome Adzievski and Stanko Pavleski: Trilogy Province 2; Yane Calovski and Hristina Ivanovska: Spiral Trip; Marin Dimeski: Beside the Story; Petar Hadzi Boskov: The Street; Igor Tosevski: Process;
Geometrical Abstraction and Op-art; 7th Youth Biennial; Nikola Uzunovski: Waterdrops; “Denes 3” Annual Award; Edward Lucy-Smith: Digital Prints; Miroslav Grcev: Signs and Ornaments; Ladislav Cvetkovski: Prints; Petar Mazev; Verica Kovacevska: Learning to Love Myself.
