Coordinates of a Dream: 60 Years of Projecting Contemporaneity MoCA SKOPJE 1964-2024 >

Coordinates of a Dream:
60 Years of Projecting Contemporaneity
MoCA SKOPJE 1964-2024 >

04/04/2024 – 21/05/2024
Thursday, 7.30pm

Curators: Vladimir Janchevski and Blagoja Varoshanec

In conditions when the world is facing dramatic development, in a contemporary era in which there is a danger that knowledge will be rejected at the expense of skills, and that creation will be overshadowed by widespread destruction, we must not forget about the exceptional importance of awareness of history. It is also a defense of the idea of acting in a broad comparative field of constant critical examination of methods and criteria, necessary for orientation in the present and projecting the future.

This is probably why it is inevitable to return to the most basic questions, about the institutional form and the social role of culture, about archives and documents as opposed to the fictionalization of reality.

In the year when we commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje, one of the most significant national institutions in the field of culture and a recognizable symbol of world solidarity, we are trying to locate the important coordinates of a dream that became a tangible reality of a process of continuous projection of contemporaneity.

This year’s jubilee reminds us once again that the Museum, through the commitment and efforts of the initiative board, and of course the first director Prof. Dr. Boris Petkovski (1964-1976) and Sonja Abadzieva Dimitrova (1977-1984) becomes an important part of local and global cultural history. The subsequent generations continue the course in the construction of a lasting memory and a monument to the work of over 1900 artists – donors from 70 countries from all around the world, which after the earthquake of July 26, 1963, which by donating artworks as an act of solidarity, honored the city of Skopje and the citizens of the entire country.

The primary goal of the museum is to stir and present the latest contemporary artistic tendencies, and the history of all these efforts is inextricably linked with the development of museology, graphic and exhibition design, or most generally understood as important segments in the multidimensional history of visual culture.

For that, in addition to the exceptional importance of artists and curators, numerous authors who contributed to defining the visual identity of the Museum, such as Dragutin Avramovski-Gute, Stefan Georgievski, Jovan Shumkovski, Ladislav Cvetkovski, Mihajlo Moteski, Iliana Petrushevska, Neda Firfova, Private Print, Ariane Spanier and others.

The museum’s rich exhibition history, which includes hundreds of individual and group exhibitions of domestic and foreign artists, the “Young Generation” exhibitions from 1967, which grew into the “Youth Biennale (1987-present), then the educational and film program, but also a rich publishing activity, which includes monographic publications, as well as the magazine for contemporary art, culture and theory, from the first to the latest issue.

In the exhibition, in addition to the review of visual and documentary material, posters and publications, a selection of artworks from the MoCA-Skopje collection will be presented, including those of Marino Tartaglja, Hans Hartung, Alexander Calder, Petar Lubarda, Dusan Otasevic, Petar Hadzi Boshkov, Jordan Grabul, Aneta Svetieva, Malgorzata Potocka, Jovan Shumkovski, Hristina Ivanoska, Chto Delat.

This exhibition through a chronology of events starting from 1963 as the zero point, through the establishment of the institution in 1964, the construction and opening of the Museum in 1970, up to the most current exhibitions such as the international exhibition “All that we have in common” and the solo exhibitions of numerous world renownеd artists, is just an attempt through the mapping of the numerous events and their visual communication aspect to give an impetus to thinking about the importance of MoCA-Skopje in the process of projecting and shaping the image of contemporaneity.

The exhibition is part of the commemoration of the 60^th anniversary of the founding of MoCA – Skopje, which will continue throughout 2024 with numerous important events, exhibitions and lectures, and workshops.