Opening
30
September 2020. at 7 p.m.
Gallery S: The Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina
Duration: September 30 – October 24, 2020.
Curator: Sanja Kojić Mladenov
Nenad Šoškić, a sculptor by art education, is focused on researching the border forms of this visual medium and acting in the expanded field of spatial installations and ambiences medium, with the introduction of contextuality and the dialogue with current social topics and relations, especially the mass-media, information and news.
Developing a concept with a standpoint in the analysis and questioning of the role of mass media culture today, the speed of information flow, their non-selective placement and consumeristic evaluation, he opens up a number of questions about modern society and the way it functions. He first developed a series of works dedicated to this topic in USA, at the MANA Gallery in New York, organized by ‘‘Mana Contemporary‘‘, and then at the prestigious manifestation ‘‘Art Basel‘‘ in Miami, with an exhibition titled ‘‘Transformation‘‘. Inspired to research the socio-political and cultural role that the everyday news, their frequency and, at the same time, their transiency have in the United States, he, then, continues with a series of single works and solo exhibitions in Montenegro, the space of his personal environment, as well as in the region (Novi Sad, Sarajevo, Zagreb, etc.)
Nenad Šoškić © All rights belong to the artist.
He conceives the exhibition in Novi Sad as a site-specific installation composed of three segments which complement each other, thus creating a conceptually unique setting. The individual elements of the art work lead an active dialogue with the space of the exhibition, changing the expected relation of the rooms and the usual way of moving of the visitors through it, including them actively in communication and interaction with the changed ambience. This specific relation between the audience and the work of art is an important segment of contemporary art practice which emphasizes the importance of hypermedia, i.e. communication, contact, transfer, transmission, reception and connection between the visitor and the art work through perceptual experiences that exceed the basic visual experience through other sensory cognitions.
The presentation will be realized within the scope of the international project Risk Change supported by the European Union program Creative Europe and the Provincial Secretariat for Culture, Public Information and Relations with Religious Communities.
As the exhibition space of the Gallery S of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina has a geometric form of a meander at its base and requires a specific zig-zag movement within three, somewhat separate spatial units, the author posed the question of possible ways of communication within it, exploring what is typical and expected, and what would be the challenge, interruption and obstacle in it, the necessary change that would open new paths and situations.
With his concept Transformation, he continued to develop artistic practice based on the application of aspects from his own social environment, autobiographical construct and current socio-political discourse, using the universally understandable language of contemporary art, using fragmentation, repetition and reduction of aesthetic expression.
The prescribed protection measures due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19 are being implemented in the MoCAV, so it is obligatory to wear protective masks, and a maximum of 30 people are allowed to stay at the same time.
Nenad Šoškić was born in 1970 in Bar, Montenegro. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje in 1994, and completed his postgraduate studies in 1996 at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Serbia. He is a professor at the study programme Sculpture, Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje. From 2008 – 2014 he was the dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje. From 2014 he has held the position of business director of the Centre of Contemporary Art of Montenegro in Podgorica.
He started his artistic activity by participating in the important visual events, such as: Youth Biennale, Vršac (1994), The Cetinje Biennale, Cetinje (1994, 1997), Sculpture Triennial, Pančevo (1997), as well as exhibitions at the art institutions of the former Yugoslavia. He is a participant of many exhibitions of contemporary art of Montenegro held abroad and, in recent years, he has done significant art projects in the USA and Italy. Several of his sculptures are displayed in the public spaces in Montenegro. He is
the winner of the Montenegro Academy of Science and Art Award (2004), Milunović – Stijović – Lubarda Award, the Award of the Traditional Exhibition of ULUCG, Podgorica (2000), etc.
