Exhibition "No Longer and Not Yet" by the art duo diSTRUKTURA, Salon of the MoCAB

No Longer and Not Yet
Solo exhibition by the art duo diSTRUKTURA 

05.04.2019―13.05.2019.
The Salon of the MoCAB
Opening: Friday, 5.4.2019 at 7 p.m.
 
Exhibition curator: Mirjana Peitler
 
The new solo multmedia exhibition No Longer and Not Yet by the art duo diSTRUKTURA deals with the changes and the newly created liminal spaces, resulting from the major urban development project in the Belgrade borough, Savalama. This border zone, or interspace, where urban, architectural as well as social and political transformations take place, can be interpreted as a place of transition, waiting and disorientation, that is situated between what once was and what is yet to come.

These are the spaces that separate between the outer and the inner, the public and the private, the history and the future, the real and the virtual – spaces that are on the brink of transformation, existence and vanishing. Such spaces become a symptom of a society in transition, and their ambivalence marks the relationship between totalitarianism and liberalism, socialism and capitalism, totalitarian lies and everyday life.
 
In their artistic practice, the art duo diSTRUKTURA examines the expanded notions of nature today, including different forms of nature, pseudo-nature and artificially created nature, i.e. urban constellations. By defining the relations in these newly formed structures that can be real or simulated, they constitute the reality of contemporary life. In their works, motifs of nature and cities from around the world become objects of isolated contemplation, that invite the spectator to join in this contemplation.
 
In their investigations of urban spaces, diSTRUKTURA often follows the model of situationist psychogeography, that relies on the concept of urban nomadism as a strategy for exploring cities. This strategy, which resembles a game, encompasses everything that leads the pedestrian outside of their predictable path, giving them new insight regarding the urban landscape, with the goal of mapping uncharted spaces and sometimes less desirable but often more personal paths. One of these works, a video made in 2013 in the Belgrade borough of Savamala discovered these streaming currents, a path in Savamala that is not defined by its architecture, but rather by the emotions and the memories of its inhabitants. It was precisely this work that served as a starting point for the new exhibition at the Salon. The exhibition examines this space at a distance, six years later, presenting the large and the visible architectural, urban and also political transformations.
 
Milica Milićević and Milan Bosnić graduated and received their MA at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, at the Department of Painting. From 2005, they have been working together as the artistic duo diSTRUKTURA, examining the expanded notions of nature today, including different forms of nature, pseudo-nature or artificially created nature, i.e. urban constellations. Their aim is to define the relations in these newly formed structures, which can be real or simulated, and constitute the reality of contemporary life. They participated in over 30 solo exhibitions and more than 60 group exhibitions in Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Romania, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Japan, Slovakia, Czechia, Montenegro, Croatia, Hungary, Finland and Egypt. diSTRUKTURA participated in artist-in-residence programs and workshops in Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Slovenia, Italy, Finland, Egypt and Serbia. They won numerous awards and fellowships, including the Pollock-Krasner grant for 2015. Their works are in over 15 public and private collections.    
 
Mirjana Peitler lives and works in Graz. She graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering at the FTS in Novi Sad, and from the department of art history at KFU in Graz. From 2003, she organizes and supervises art projects that mainly emphasize Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. From 2008 to 2012, she was the director of Medienkunstlabor im Kunsthaus Graz, where she dealt with the production and the presentation of multimedia installations. In 2011, she founded the association GISAlab (GirlsisScienceandArtlab), an experiment that intersects the fields of science, technology and art, with the goal of providing opportunities for women that wish to develop their interest in these fields. She is also active in the associations kunst.ost and kultur.at. 
Currently, she is pursuing her postgraduate studies in the field of politics and the culture of memory in the public space.