Lazo Plavevski: On A Thin Ice

The exhibition presents the work of Lazo Plavevski created in the last seven years. We are talking about caricatures that he has continuously published on the Okno web portal since 2015, the realization of which was prompted by the crisis situation in which our country found itself, as a result of the undemocratic governance practices by the ruling structures (illegal wiretapping, Skopje 2014, election manipulations, partisanship in all spheres of social life). During this period, over 500 cartoons were published (from the first four cartoons published in March 2015, until the last series of 16 cartoons On thin ice! published in January 2022), in which the dark situation in the “Macedonian Temen” is presented Vilayet”, but also the gloomy state in which we find ourselves as a result of the suspension of the positive benefits and utopian assumptions of modernity.

The cartoons are published in series and are designed as specific thematic entities: In them he comments and dissects the political and social developments in the country, covering a wide range of topics, from the wiretapping scandal, populism, power, capital, identity, revolutionary élan, the pandemic, to a series of “incidents” related to certain life situations and paradoxes.

The exhibition, which will present around 200 original and digital caricature prints, is an extraordinary opportunity not only to see the creative engagement of Lazo Plavevski in the field of caricature, in which he occupies a prominent and significant place, but also to encourage renewed interest in this artistic medium, which in recent decades has been almost brought to the brink of its own disappearance.

The exhibition is curated by Ljiljana Nedelkovska.

Lazo Plavevski (Skopje, 1954) is a cartoonist, art historian, curator, art critic. Until 2021, he works as a curator/curator advisor at the Museum of the City of Skopje. As a curator, he has organized a large number of solo and group exhibitions, and as a caricaturist he has realized several solo projects and participated in several group exhibitions. From 1995 to 2009, he was a regular collaborator and member of the editorial board of the visual arts magazine “Golemoto kasle”, published by the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje.

He has been publishing cartoons since 1970 in several magazines in the country and abroad. In 1976, he received the GRAND PRIX award at the World Caricature Gallery in Skopje.

In 1995, he published “Nema kniga / caricatures 1990 – 1993”, and in 2001, together with Miroslav Grchev, the book “Cards”. In the form of a catalog/book, the “Useless Notes” project was published in 2009, and in 2016, his electronic book “Recitative for the Dark Province” was published on the Okno portal.