57^th OCTOBER SALON AWARDS

Over the six weeks in the period between 15^th September and 28^th October 2018, 57^th October Salon: The Marvellous Cacophony, presented in five exhibition spaces, was visited by over 40,000 people from the whole world. More than 40 side programmes were organized within the frame of the Salon, including discussions with the artists, thematic and curatorial guiding tours through the exhibition – realized in cooperation with experts in culture and visual arts, workshops for children and young people, film programme, etc.

The exhibition was held in five spaces in the centre of Belgrade: in the Cultural Centre of Belgrade (Gallery Artget, Fine Arts Gallery, and Podroom Gallery), in the Belgrade City Museum, Remont Gallery, U10 art space, and in the Gallery of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The exhibition gathered 72 artists from all over the world, and the cooperation with Balkan Projects brought a special event dedicated to performance.

The jury that decided on the award of 57^th October Salon were: Jan Fabre (president), an artist, writer, director and choreographer, Ilaria Marotta, a curator, one of the founders of the magazine CURA and its editor-in-chief, and Dragan Jovanović Danilov, a literary author, essayist, and an art critic. Following the decision reached by the 57^th October Salon board that two awards should be given, the jury decided to present them to Marguerite Humeau and Nina Ivanović, two artists who belong to the same generation and whose artistic paths are marked by a clearly defined direction and identity.

Marguerite Humeau studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven and at the Royal College of Art, London, where she obtained her MA in Design Interactions in 2011. Her work has been shown in various solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums including Tate Britain (London), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Nottingham Contemporary, Château de Versailles, Haus Konstruktiv (Zürich), the High Line (New York), Manifesta11 (Zürich), Schinkel Pavillon (Berlin), TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (Vienna), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), and the Hayward Gallery (Touring Programme). Her work has been amply discussed and included in numerous publications worldwide. She was awarded the Zürich Art Prize 2017. She is a visiting tutor at Open School East (Margate) and HEAD–Genève. Nina Ivanović graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Painting Department, in 2010. She was a member of NKA- ICA (Independent Cultural Association) and exhibited within it from 2006 until 2010; in 2012, together with six other artists, she founded the U10 Art Space, and has run it since. Nina is a two-times winner of the awards for drawing – by the Faculty of Fine Arts (2009) and First Prize from the “Vladimir Veličković” Fund (2014). For three months during 2013-2014, she was an artist in residence at Glo’Art Centre in Belgium and for a month in 2017 at Kuckucks Nest in Basel, Switzerland. Her work focuses on everyday situations through various media, such as drawing, photography and wire installation.

The Award by the Cultural Centre of Belgrade at 57^th October Salon, which entails a solo exhibition in one of the Centre’s galleries, was unanimously given to artistic duo Eva Koťátková and Dominik Lang (the Czech Republic), for their work “There Are Two in the Room”. The members of the jury were: Miroslav Karić (president), an art historian and the Remont Gallery curator, Svetlana Petrović, the curator at the Fine Arts Gallery at the Cultural Centre of Belgrade, and Zorana Đaković Minniti, the coordinator of international cooperation and the Podroom Gallery. Since the award was given to an art duo who have joint projects but also acclaimed individual opuses, this will be the first time that the Award will be realized in two exhibition spaces within the Cultural Centre of Belgrade, Fine Arts Gallery, and Podroom Gallery, in 2020.

Eva Koťátková is interested in topics of difference, empathy and sharing as well as discipline, norms and power structures that surround, shape or deform the individual. She often focuses on the situation of groups or individuals who are for various reasons excluded, discriminated, silenced. Dominik Lang is a sculptor who, from the very beginning of his career as an artist, has reflected on the ways artworks are presented, taking into account the history of the exhibited work, the social, political and economic context that surrounds it as well as the architecture to which it is situated. Lang believes that exhibition spaces shouldn’t be just a (mute) backdrop, but elements that play an active role in the perception of an artwork and the formulation of its meaning.

The Cultural Centre of Belgrade announces with great pleasure that about eighty works from the October Salon collection have been declared cultural property, among which are the works by some of the most renowned artists from Serbia and from abroad. The Cultural Centre of Belgrade has assembled an October Salon Collection, inspired by Jan Fabre who, after the 52^nd October Salon, at which he exhibited, gave his work “I Am a One man Movement” to the Cultural Centre of Belgrade. The collection includes the works by the acclaimed artists who have participated at the October Salon exhibitions since 2004, and who have given one or more of their works as a present. The idea is to enrich the collection not only through the gifts by the artists but by the purchases as well, which would enrich the character of the collection (making it more varied and objectively transparent).

This year’s October Salon: The Marvellous Cacophony was supported by the Secretariat for Culture of the City of Belgrade, the Ministry of Culture and Information, and the general sponsor NIS. As a socially responsible company, NIS offers their support to cultural events such as October Salon, thus investing in education of the young and contributing to the support of cultural values. Aware of the fact that culture represents the soul of a society, NIS supports the initiatives directed at the development and improvement of culture as one of the strategic goals that the company achieves under the slogan “Future in Action”.

Support was also given by EPSON, “Nikola Tesla” Airport, the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, the Embassy of the Republic of Korea, the Embassy of France, the embassy of Switzerland, the French Institute in Belgrade, Pro Helvetia, Info Media Group, BUM, Srbijašume, etc.