It Is Wrong to Think That You Will Understand It
oil on canvas
80 cm x 100 cm
2011
The work It Is Wrong to Think That You Will Understand It colourfully and “tamely” expresses the author’s dissatisfaction concerning the neoliberal and capitalist mechanisms and derivatives of spectacle and entertainment, which lead to atrophy in young people and to turning them into obedient elements of economy.
After the 2000s, Stojanović’s art practice has been directed against the consumer society and the neoliberal capitalist society that is driven by the economic interests of the minority and that produces poverty, sexism, marginalization, institutionalized violence and subordination of all kinds. In the work It Is Wrong to Think That You Will Understand It, attention is drawn to daily politics and the current reality; the painting contains messages that speak ironically about the socio-political everyday life. The group of people shown in the painting carry banners with messages such as: “Adapted man is not a free being”, “Robo Sapiens”, “The magic of how, where and why”, “Dogs used to look like their owners, now the owners look like their cars”, “In a variety of things, Capitalism, offers unfavourable loans”, “Ignoring is a new form of censorship”, etc. With his work, Stojanović proposes that we all should stop working on maintaining this false world and go to our own self-sustaining escapes, independent of the system. For him, art must not be intended for petty-bourgeois audiences and mediocrities, without any human and critical content.
© Cultural Centre of Belgrade, the October Salon Collection and the artist
Purchase Contract: III-5-381/16.11.2016.
Inventory No. 1459
Photo: Courtesy the artist
Selected Bibliography:
Saša Stojanović: Sloboda, Feb. 20 – Mar. 12, 2018, solo exhibition catalogue, City Gallery in Užice, 2018
Saša Stojanović: Nebesko pecivo, Apr. 9–27, 2013, text for the solo exhibition, Kolarac Gallery, Belgrade, 2013
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Saša Stojanović (1968, Leskovac, Serbia) is a visual artist, performer and activist. He graduated in painting from the Faculty of Arts in Pristina in 1997. His work is based on the affirmation of love and communication and a critical and self-reflexive attitude towards life, social reality and institutions. Performances realized during the 1990s and early 2000s, in the context of an engaged alternative, make a significant part of his opus. There is also a series of his lectures titled “Heavenly Pastry Listens to Records and Talks to People”, at which rock music by lesser-known musicians from the period 1966-1969 was played. He is the author of the poster and cover for the album “Luckily, General Loves Children” by the group Obojeni program and did graphic design for the book Three Knots on an Eyelash by Ljubivoje Ršumović. A member of ULUS (Association of Fine Artists of Serbia). In 2016, he realized the project Grail Library of Miracles with the Clio Publishing House, where he offers visual solutions that speak in a free spirit, opposing the banality of decorative consumer trends in book design.