Fragile presence
roto-print
30 cm x 40 cm
2016
March of Hope, Refugees, Liberation, Salvation, Strength, Hand, Megaphone, Tool
Fragile presence serie
acrylics on canvas
variable dimensions (8 psc)
2016–2018
The spatial installation Fragile Presence, produced for the needs of the 56th October Salon, included painted objects, wall drawing(s) and 16 graphic sheets printed in the newspaper style and circulation. In the acrylic on canvas technique, the artists presented the dominant motifs of the drawings on walls and objects that made the original installation of the work.
The work refers to the March of Hope, as migrants called their foot march from the train station in Budapest to the German border, escaping threatening detention in Hungarian camps in the late summer of 2015.
The drawings show the symbols, processes and actors of the foot march. The work focuses on the fragile presence of the bodies and moving of their collectivity. It articulates the moment in which the dynamics of human bodies disrupts the technocratic defence measures of the “fortress” of Europe and shows the instant when invisible people, escaping from unbearable conditions of life, become visible and vulnerable, exposed to the mechanisms of governance, their very existence left to the hatred or solidarity and love of others.
Rena Rädle and Vladan Jeremić often deal with marginal, oppressed and socially endangered structures of society, such as Roma, economic migrants and immigrants, precarious workers, as well as with various consequences of transition, privatization, international geopolitical interests, etc. Their works do not record the aesthetic-anthropological exoticism of the poverty of refugees, Roma, migrants, but deal with finding solutions for the abolition of exploitation, oppression and enslavement of man in capitalism, addressing the whole society.
© Cultural Centre of Belgrade, the October Salon Collection and the artists
Gift Contract: III-5-85/16.11.2016 / Purchase Contract: III-5-394/6.11.2019
Inventory No. 105, 1664
Photo: Courtesy the artists
Selected Bibliography:
56th October Salon, The Pleasure of Love. Cultural Centre of Belgrade, 2016
Rena Rädle & Vladan Jeremić, ‟Fragile Presence, Time for Movement”, The Large Glass, Journal of Contemporary Art, Culture and Theory, No. 25 / 26, Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje, 2018
Rena Rädle, ‟Artistic Protest Practices in Serbia”, Art, Anti-Globalism and the Neo-Authoritarian Turn, FIELD Journal for socially-engaged art criticism, issue 12–13, 2019
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Rena Rädle (1970, Neumarkt, Germany) graduated from the Art University in Kassel in 2002. Vladan Jeremić (1975, Belgrade, Serbia) received his master’s degree from the University of Arts in Belgrade in 2004. Since 2002, Rädle and Jeremić have worked as an art couple. Their art practice comprises installations consisting of drawings, sculptures and multimedia works. In their collaborative practice they explore the overlapping spaces of art and the wider social context in Serbia and beyond. Their works are part of museum collections, including Van Abbemuseum, Ajndhoven, the Netherlands; MUDAM, Luxemburg; Museum Reina Sofa, Madrid, Spain; Thessaloniki State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece. Based in Belgrade. More information at http://raedle-jeremic.net/