News E-FLUX ANOUNCED MSU SKOPJE EXHIBITION
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E-FLUX ANOUNCED MSU SKOPJE EXHIBITION

One of the most representative online platforms for contemporary art, e-flux, published an announcement about the upcoming exhibition All That We Have in Common / Sa so si amenge jekhethane at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje, .

The exhibition is organized within the framework of the 14th European Nomad Biennale for Contemporary Art – Manifesta and will be opened in the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje on November 8.

The curators of the exhibition are Mustafa Asan, Mo Diener, Mira Gaqina, and Jovanka Popova.

The Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje is a partner institution with Manifesta Biennial

Visit e-flux.com/announcements/

 

Cover illustration: Delaine Le Bas, Universal declaration of human rights, 2013, paint, pen, hand embellishments on fabric, 285x150cm

Photo credit: Alexander Christie, courtesy of the artist and Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix Gallery

The director of the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje, Mira Gaćina, joined by a team of curators is on a working visit to their colleagues at the Kunsthalle Museum in Vienna where they are preparing for the upcoming exhibition that will present in the Austrian capitol the collection of the Skopje MoCA at the beginning of next year.

 

“At the Kunsthalle Vienna, we have several working meetings where we discuss this ambitious project. The curatorial team of this important institution and several internationally recognized artists were already in Skopje for a selection of a number of significant works from our collection. They will be exhibited next year in the Kunsthalle in an area of ​​over 1000 meters square. This means that in one of the European capitals, through a new reading, we will affirm our precious collection and the city of Skopje”, says Gaćina.

 

The concept envisages 8 international artists making their own selection from the collection and devising a setting that will establish a dialogue between these works and their work. The idea is to see how today’s artists experience this collection created through artistic solidarity.

 

 

A unanimous decision was made by the panel of jurors Iva Dimovski (Art Historian), Velimir Zernovski (visual artist) and Yane Calovski (visual artist) to award the “The most successful artist and art piece” at the 13th International Biennial of young artists “Passion for wandering” equally between Natasha Nedelkova (R. North Macedonia) for her contribution titled “Tissues of identity”, video, 2020; Darko Aleksovski (R. North Macedonia), for his piece “Never Not in Love, a spatial and video installation, 2019 and Driton Selmani (Kosovo), for the sculpture titled “But No But (or reverse), 2019.

For the first time, this award was presented to three artists and artworks which the panel of jurors considered the most impressive, corresponding to the overall theme at the Biennial. The award includes an independent exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Moreover, this decision points toward the need for a wider representation of young artists at museum exhibitions, to support the development of their artistic efforts and also emphasizes the need for a more critical and fundamental focus and contemplation of the topics that these young artists are ready to take on and share with the public.

With all this in mind, the panel of jurors wishes to congratulate all of the artists taking part in this year’s exhibit and at the same time emphasize the high level of production and conceptual relevance of the exhibited artworks. Furthermore, the jurors wish to emphasize the fundamental connection of the “Passion for wandering” concept (with Artan Sadiku, Jovanka Popova, Blagoja Varosanec, and Iva Dimovski as the curators) with the powerfully effective model of dispersed locations at which the Biennial took place, which introduced new possibilities for presentation of artworks and vibrant connection with the audience.

The jurors had this to say about the selected pieces: The intimate nature of the narration and the clear visual language of the “Tissue of identity” video by Natasha Nedelkova which was exhibited at the Museum of Macedonia find a way to easily capture the subjectivity of identity in terms of the urban transformation of Skopje. The artist’s authentic voice in this piece is a tool that guides the viewer to experience our own presence, muddled and concealed in public space, released only in “therapeutic temporary space” in the fragile nature of intimacy.

The spatial and video installation “To be alone with you” by Darko Aleksovski which was presented at the building, home to the Macedonian Hydrometeorological Service, is the most developed and mature piece by the artist to date. The architecture of the building where the installation was presented only contributed to the experience of this palpable and analogous material. The metaphoric properties in the image of the wave that continuously returns is engaged in a discourse with the concept of shared intimacy as an act of release. The beauty of this piece is precisely in the abstract sense of time and its repetitiveness, where feelings that have been experienced at one-time clash with the present contact with the audience.

The sculpture “But No But (or reverse)” by Driton Selmani, an artist from Kosovo, contemplates the idea of deconstruction of social, political, and cultural perceptions embodied all around the artist. He defines the sculpture as a reconstruction of personal convictions, expressed in visual artifacts based on his own beliefs and doubts. This piece is impressive in its own simplicity, the manner in which Selmani has managed to remain true to the concept of materialization of the immaterial things, that is simultaneously ephemeral and monumental, clear and abstract, personal and social, a feeling that implies a parallel presence and absence. In 2022, the selected artists will have the opportunity to exhibit their work independently at the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje with the support and funds from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia’s annual program.

 

The prestigious ArtForum Culture Foundation enriched MoCA Skopje’s collection with two works by the Jana Dettmer and Monika von Eschenbach. Both artists produced their works within the joint project in the European ArtForum Culture Foundation and the Winter Foundation from Hamburg, as a part of their dedication to gender equality. 

Monika von Eschenbach is an innovative photographer who creates a new dimension in sculptural photography, situating her practice in the domain of conceptual photography and sculpture. 

Jana Dettmer is a renowned lawyer, who shows the same dedication in her artistic work, reinterpreting abstract painting, with a specific focus on experimenting with the processes of perception. 

Driven by feelings of collaboration and solidarity, in the spirit of which our collection has been founded, we are proud and happy to share this cultural action with you. 

 

 

Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje is joining the CIMAM family! Our hard work, exceptional dedication and care for our collection, stepping out of our borders and onto the international scene, our rich programme and The Large Glass Magazine, have been recognized by CIMAM – The International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art.

 

CIMAM is the only international community that represents the interests of modern and contemporary art museum professionals and that provides the resources and the necessary exchange platforms for the best development of the museum activity. This membership further establishes MoCA Skopje’s place among the most renowned contemporary art museums of the world.

The Russian team of artists, critics, philosophers and writers Chto Delat – (What to do) donated a work of art to the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje. Their video “Becoming With the Museum” will be exhibited as part of the permanent exhibition, which will open this year at MoCA.

In their statement on this occasion, they said:

Ever since we got to know The Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje, we fell in love with its space, the relationship between the indoor and outdoor views, its different layers, and its unique collection. We used the chance to work with the space in a performative way, revealing these inspirations.

Museums are spaces where we encounter the accumulation of different art pieces combined in one display, offering the viewer a multiplicity of experiences. They are built in order to amplify it. The Contemporary Art Museum in Skopje is the best example with its vantage position over the city, with its elegant cement and glass surfaces which help us feel and engage with artworks in a decent and proper way.

We worked in this amazing space for 5 days with a group of young artists and we conceived a performance around the exhibition spaces which reflects the relation of the seminar’s participants to the selected pieces of artworks. We wanted to link the macro narrative of different art works (when and how they are created, their social meaning, etc.) with a micro-narrative of every performer who was challenged to explain with her body and lyrical text the relations to the work and thus create a transformative and refreshing mapping of the museum and history of young generation which activate the transformative potential of museum.

 

The Dutch visual artist Jonas Staal and the Russian collective of artists, critics, philosophers and writers “Chto Delat” donated their works of art to the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje, so that the museum’s art collection is enriched with several very significant works.
The artist Jonas Staal donated his installation “New Unions 2016” (New Unions 2016 – 2019), which is part of the exhibition “All that we have in common” curated by Mira Gakjina and Jovanka Popova.  The Russian collective “Chto Delat” donated their video “Becoming With the Museum” for the permanent exhibition, which will be open this year at MoCA Skopje. This video was produced by “Kontrapunkt” and developed as a performance as part of the program of “Krik Festival” that in 2017 took place in Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje.
The New Unions installation by Jonas Staal is an artistic and political campaign that departs from the current political, economic, humanitarian, and environmental crisis of Europe with the aim of assembling representatives of transdemocratic movements and organizations to propose scenarios for new future unions. Staal is an artist whose work deals with the relation between art, propaganda, and democracy. He is the founder of the artistic and political organization New World Summit (2012–ongoing). Together with Florian Malzacher he co-directs the training camp Training for the Future (2018-ongoing), and with the human rights lawyer Jan Fermon he has initiated the collective action lawsuit Collectivize Facebook (2020-ongoing). With writer and lawyer Radha D’Souza he founded the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (2021-ongoing) and with Laure Prouvost he is co-administrator of the Obscure Union. His projects were exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the M_HKA in Antwerp, the Modern Museum in Stockholm and the Nam June Paik Art Center in Seoul, as well as the 7 Berlin Biennale, 31 S Саo Paulo Biennale and 12 Taipei Biennale.
The video donated by Chto Delat documents the process in which they works with a group of young artists and creates a performance, which shows the relationship of the participants with the selected works of art from the collection of MoCA Skopje. The work connects the macro-narrative of different works of art (when and how they are created, their social significance, etc.) with the micro-narrative of each performer, who through his body and lyrical text explains the relationship with the selected work. The work is a refreshing map of the museum and the history of the young generation that activates the transformative potential of the museum. 

The collective Chto Delat (What is to be done?) was founded in early 2003 in Petersburg by a workgroup of artists, critics, philosophers, and writers from St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Nizhny Novgorod with the goal of merging political theory, art, and activism. The name of the group derives from a novel by the Russian 19th century writer Nikolai Chernyshevsky, and immediately brings to mind the first socialist worker’s self-organizations in Russia, which Lenin actualized in his own publication, “What is to be done?” (1902). Chto Delat sees itself as an artistic cell and also as a community organizer for a variety of cultural activities intent on politicizing “knowledge production”. They advocates for the equality of all people, fighting against various forms of patriarchy, homophobia and gender inequality. They convey their ideas through: film, theater performances, radio programs, murals, public campaigns and seminars. The Russian collective Chto Delat has collaborated on Documenta 12 in Kassel in 2007, the 11th edition of the Gwangju Biennale in 2016, the Internship Program at the Garage Museum in Moscow in 2017, and exhibited their works the 12th Shanghai Biennale 2018; Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (2018); MUAC (The Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo), Mexico; COW BERLIN (2017 and 2015), San Paolo Biennale (2014);  Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2014); Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2013); House der Kultren der Welt, Berlin (2013); 10th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2012); Statalice Kunstel, Baden-Baden (2011); Klnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2011); New Museum, New York (2011); Modern Gallery, Ljubljana (2011); Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2010) and others.

 

Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje is pleased to be a partner in the Manifesta 14 Western Balkans Project: Co-Producing Common Space and Shaping Formations of Solidarity in the Western Balkans and Beyond, co-funded by the European Union.

As part of the program of this project, the Museum of Contemporary Art will be the organizer of series of program activities, discursive and exhibitional program. The discoursive program, starting from 2021, will focus on the function of museums of contemporary art in the “New Reality” era, which is shaped by related events during 2020 and 2021, such as pandemics, locks, closed borders, nationalist government responses, hostile environmental policies, protests, etc.

The International Foundation Manifesta, the initiator of Europe’s only nomadic cultural biennial and initiator of the Manifesta 14 Western Balkans Project, is collaborating with the City of Prishtina, Kosovo to develop Manifesta 14 Prishtina which will open its doors from the 22nd of July to the 30th of October 2022.

Organised for the occasion of the biennial, the International Foundation Manifesta has set up the Manifesta 14 Western Balkans Project which aims to enlarge the outreach and duration of the European Nomadic Biennial by developing a cross-regional collaborative platform including a vast array of cultural and civic activities across the region. An integral objective of the project is to open up the Western Balkan to create a project that breaks the confines of isolated cultural infrastructures and networks.

Liking architecture, urban planning, human rights, arts and culture, the Manifesta 14 Western Balkans Project proposes a plethora of diverse activities in 2021 and 2022 ranging from in-depth cultural research, expert talks and conferences to exhibitions and events across the region.

The partner network of the Manifesta Western Balkans Project promotes a politics of care between different communities in the Western Balkans and aims to stimulate broader cross-border network structures, where knowledge production and local expertise can thrive.

The activities in the development process will be the result of close collaborations between the International Foundation Manifesta, The Netherlands and nine partners from the Western Balkans: Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Skopje; Post-Conflict Research Center Sarajevo (PCRC); RRITU (Termokiss) Prishtina; Quendra Harabel Tirana; APSS Institute Podgorica; NGO Aktiv Kosovo; Meydan D.O.O. (Hestia) Belgrade; Kosovo Architecture Foundation (KAF); Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Sofia; European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) Berlin.

The Manifesta 14 Western Balkans Project has been awarded a Creative Europe Western Balkans grant by the European Union.

Visit part of the Museum rooms through the exhibition See Me Moving Placeless, installed in Galleries 1, 2, 3, and the museum cinema theatre.

 

See Me Moving Placeless

 

The exhibition See Me Moving Placeless presents the thematic selection by the curators, Mira Gakjina and Jovanka Popova, from the Art Collection of Deutsche Telekom with works by the most representative artists from Southeast Europe. The exhibition was realized from September 29 through November 21, 2021. More about See Me Moving Placeless