Syndicate: Parallels - Art from Macedonia in IFA Gallerie

["Melentie Pandilovski" <mpandil@soros.org.mk>]

PARALLELEN - KUNST AUS MAKEDONIEN
Parallels - Art From Macedonia



project by
Institut fŸr Auslandbeziehungen Berlin [IFA]
Barbara Barsch, PhD
and
Soros Center for Contemporary Arts - Skopje, Macedonia
Nebojsa Vilic, PhD


IFA Gallerie Berlin
28. August - 9. October 1997.


	The exhibition Parallelen has for an aim the presentation of four
Macedonian artist in the IFA Gallery in Berlin. These artists have
been selected among forty most relevant artists and their recent
importance in the general Macedonian art scene. The exhibition intends
to present four parallels as  metaphoric lines of the most interesting
and relevant streams in Macedonia among the younger mid generation. It
shows the interest for the artistic expression either representing the
most actual concepts (sharing) dealing with postmodernist issues such
as the questioning of the position of the artist in the society, the
inclusion of the space as a part of and the reason of the artistic
thought, and the different ways of exploring how the artistic acting
can provide approaches towards the specific treatment of the [very
widely understood] materials. Therefore, in the works of Tome
Adzievski there is a tendency towards the renewal of the manual skill
of the artistic shaping, but not in a 'classical' or 'traditional'
way. He is confronting, let us say, the casted brass sculpture to the
photographs of the ocean shore; or the hand-sculpted wooden hand
contra the photo 'portraits' of a free running horse in the meadow; or
a wooden-velvet head fronting the photographs of parts of a pine-tree.
He asks for a return to the nature and tactility of the artistic
creation as one of the most specific characteristics of the acting of
the artist.

	Jovan Sumkovski is interested in the effects of the spatial and
ambient arrangements of the luminous reflections of the polyester
round plated castings. The cycle that he is working on in the last few
years, titled as Echoes, is an exploring of the multilayerness of the
structure of the plate [the inner content - inflexion] and the
reflected shadows in the surrounding space which arrive from the
discrete light sources [the outer content - reflection]. In this game
of inflexion and reflection a concept is found which is led by the
chosen given objects which he casts inside the plates: lucid petite
tales about the impressions of the light and the reflection of the
everyday life.

	The installations of Slavco Sokolovski contain a more direct
communication with the recipients of the work has. His series of
Charges ends with the installation of nine wooden boxes with
terra-cotta casts of negatives in clay of nine different kind of
pistols. However,  the narrative which appears on glimpse disappears
with the background of the intention of the artist to take these
narrative structures before all as a material for an artistic
creation. In this way the work of art retains the specificity of  art
in general - to remain in world of the hidden and indirect retelling
of the social phenomena.

	Jovan Balov in his concept of multiplying the same sign
[in this case the octagon] propounds, either to the curator or to the
recipient a free game of arranging of the canvases which he paints.
With the juxtaposing of the 'coloured' and 'negative' painted fields
an endless possibility appears for combinations which are
mathematically calculated and displayed: every 'coloured' painting has
its own opponent in the 'negative' one. So, their arranging is
possible in any free choice.

	Said in general, the Parallelen is the only structure which is
possible to be accepted in order to describe the Macedonian art scene
today. Shortly, in the mid-90s it is defined in the ranges of the
above noted specifics: it has become increasingly spatial through
syncretism in the production of sketches, projects and excursions into
accessible media through the imposing of in advance defined conceptual
and/or spatial locations, increasingly shifting the focus from the
aspects of modernist formalism towards the manifestations of the
postmodernist thematic and conceptual anything-goes in the artistic
production.
	Therefore it is becoming a 'scene' of artistic differences
which avoid the facile and simple systematization of art criticism. It
becomes a conglomerate of univalent directions for exploration and
therefore its designation can only be: parallels. The artists chosen
for this exhibition are representatives of only four of them.

Nebojsa Vilic, PhD

Melentie Pandilovski
assistant director

Soros Center for Contemporary Arts - Skopje
Ruzveltova 34
91000 Skopje, Republic of Macedonia

Tel/Fax: 389.91.133.541
e-mail:  mpandil@soros.org.mk    scca@soros.org.mk
http://www.soros.org.mk