57th October Salon: THE MARVELLOUS CACOPHONY

September 15 – October 28, 2018

The Galleries of the Cultural Centre of Belgrade (Podroom, Art, Artget), Gallery of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), the Building of the Belgrade City Museum (Resavska 40b), U10 Art Space, Remont Gallery

Art Directors: Gunnar Kvaran and Danielle Kvaran

The concept of the 57th October Salon rests on the fact that the Western perception of contemporary art has become universal and that “cacophony” has been the denominator of disparate art movements since the beginning of the 21st century. The reconsidering of art and what art can be seems to be the main thread of the exhibition’s concept. The name of the exhibition, The Marvellous Cacophony, suggests a constellation of works that express, through their forms, structures and content, the diversity and richness of the cacophonous expression as an important element or condition of the international scene of contemporary art at the beginning of this century. Through this exhibition, the curators will explore art production in the world; look into different art scenes, different generations. Structured in this way, the exhibition will represent “an installation as a mirror of the world,” as a diversified situation rich in cacophony. In contrast to its pejorative ring, The Marvellous Cacophony should be seen as a positive situation, that gives rise to a new type of energy, through which dissonant and even conflicting ideas and expressions can be transmitted; the state of coexistence of “multiple identities” that deviate from purity and convey common diversities, tolerance, multiplicity and, in fact, speaking in terms of democracy, respect for the other, in order to create a meaningful narrative on art and culture, social issues and politics.

The competition for the 57th October Salon was open from June 2017 to October 2017. The aim of the competition was to get the curators acquainted with the local art practices, as well as to facilitate selection of the works of local artists who would exhibit at the Salon. There were 305 suggestions, and the results of the public competition were published in December 2017. The Salon’s art directors and selectors, Gunnar and Danielle Kvaran, decided on the applications received and selected the following artists: Ćalić Marija, Delić Lidija, Ivanović Nina, Kojić Tijana, Milak Radenko, Nikolić Nemanja, Zdjelar Katarina, Milisković Branko.

Besides the chosen local artists, the curators invited some established local and foreign artists to participate with an existing work or a work especially created for the exhibition. The preliminary list included over sixty artists from the country and abroad (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Iran, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, USA), and the final list was announced on Thursday, February 8, 2018, at the first October Salon’s press conference. The local artists who will present their works at this Salon are the following: Vladimir Veličković, Dušan Otašević, Đorđe Ozbolt, Ivan Grubanov, Ivana Bašić, Marija Ćalić, Vuk Ćuk, Maja Đorđević, Aleksandra Domanović, Nina Ivanović, Marta Jovanović, Tijana Kojić, Jelena Mijić, Branko Milisković, Nemanja Nikolić, Katarina Zdjelar. Some of the most relevant foreign artists will participate in this year’s Salon: Olafur Eliasson, Anselm Kiefer, Hito Steyerl, Takashi Murakami, Yoko Ono, Larry Bell, Cindy Sherman, etc.

The venues where the exhibition will be realized are: the Galleries of the Cultural Centre of Belgrade, SANU (Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Building of the City Museum of Belgrade, U10 Art Space, Remont – Independent Artistic Association.

Short biographies of the 57th October Salon’s curators

Gunnar B. Kvaran was born in 1955 in Reykjavik, Iceland. He received his doctorate in 1986 at the Université de Provence in France. He was the director of Reykjavik Museum in the period 1989-1997, of the Museum of Art Bergen, Norway from 1997 to 2001, and since 2001 he has been the director of the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Contemporary Art, Norway. Kvaran was the curator of the Biennale in Lyon in 2013 and one of the curators of the 2nd Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art in 2007. He curated the exhibition EUROPE, EUROPE: European New Art Scene Part 1 (with Thomas Boutoux and Hans Ulrich Obrist); Cindy Sherman: Untitled Horrors (with Daniel Birnbaum); To Be With Art Is All We Ask, In The Name of Artists: Contemporary American Art from the Astrup Fearnley Collection; Indian Highway (with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Julia Peyton Jones), etc.

Danielle Kvaran was born in Marseille in 1956. After studying classical sciences, she taught French at the University of Reykjavik, Iceland. Since 2008 she has been the curator of the Erró Collection at the Reykjavik Museum of Art. She was the visiting curator of the retrospective Erró Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon, an expert adviser in the realization of the exhibitions of collages from the Erró Collection at the Drawing Department of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 2010 and Erró, Portraits and Landscapes in Frankfurt, 2011. Her texts have been published in a number of catalogues; she has written several books on artists, including Erró, Chronology, Life and Art, and was one of the editors of the 2013 Lyon Biennial Catalogue.

List of artist:

  1. Mathis Altmann, 1987, Munich. Lives in Zurich
  2. Korakrit Arunanondchai, 1986, Bangkok. Lives in Bangkok and New York.
  3. Darja Bajagić, 1990, Podgorica, Montenegro (Titograd, YU). Lives in New York.
  4. Ivana Bašić, 1986, Belgrade, Serbia. Lives in New York.
  5. Larry Bell, 1939, Chicago, USA. Lives in Taos and Los Angeles.
  6. Hemali Bhuta, 1978, Mumbai, India. Lives in Mumbai.
  7. Dineo Seshee Bopape, 1981, Polokwane, South Africa. Lives in Johannesburg.
  8. Marija Ćalić, 1964, Serbia. Lives in Belgrade.
  9.  Ian Cheng, 1984, Los Angeles, USA. Lives in New York.
  10.  Jasmina Cibic, 1979, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Lives in London.
  11.  Vuk Ćuk, 1987, Belgrade, Serbia. Lives in Belgrade.
  12.  Lidija Delić,1986, Nikšić, Montenegro. Lives in Belgrade.
  13.  John Divola, 1949, Los Angeles, USA. Lives in Los Angeles.
  14.  Maja Đorđević, 1990, Belgrade, Serbia. Lives in Belgrade.
  15.  Aleksandra Domanović, 1981, Novi Sad, Serbia. Lives in Berlin.
  16.  Olafur Eliasson, 1967, Copenhagen, Danmark. Lives in Berlin and Copenhagen.
  17.  Erró, 1932, Ólafsvík, Iceland. Lives in Paris.
  18.  Cao Fei, 1978, Guangzhou, China. Lives in Beijing.
  19.  Vadim Fiškin, 1965, Penza, URSS. Lives in in Ljubljana.
  20.  Helgi Þorgils Friðjónsson, 1953, Reykjavik, Iceland. Lives in Reykjavik.
  21.  Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, 1971, Reykjavík, Iceland. Lives in Reykjavík.
  22.  Fernanda Gomes, 1960, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, lives in Rio de Janeiro.
  23.  Ivan Grubanov, 1976, Belgrade, YU. Lives in Belgrade.
  24.  Marie-Ange Guilleminot, 1960, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. Lives in Paris.
  25.  Romuald Hazoumè, 1962, Porto-Novo, Bénin. Lives in Porto-Novo.
  26.  Elika Hedayat, 1979, Tehran. Lives in Tehran and Paris.
  27. Yu Honglei, 1984, Inner Mongolia. Lives in Beijing.
  28.  Marguerite Humeau, 1986 in Cholet, France, lives in London.
  29.  Fabrice Hyber, 1961, Luçon, France. Lives in Paris.
  30.  Nina Ivanović, 1986, Belgrade, Serbia. Lives in Serbia.
  31.  Cui Jie, 1983, Shanghai, China. Lives in Beijing.
  32.  Marta Jovanović, 1978, Belgrade, Serbia. Lives in Serbia
  33.  Anselm Kiefer, 1945, Donaueschingen, Germany. Lives in Paris.
  34.  Tijana Kojić, 1987, Belgrade, Serbia. Lives in Belgrade.
  35.  Eva Kotatkova 1982 / Dominik Lang,  1980 Prague, Czech Republic. Lives in Prague.
  36.  Olya Kroytor, 1986, Moscow, Russia. Lives in Moscow.
  37.  Jean-Jacques Lebel, 1936, Paris. Lives in Paris.
  38.  Ann Lislegaard, 1962, Horten, Norway. Lives in Copenhagen.
  39. Tobias Madison, 1985 in Basel, Switzerland. Lives in Zurich.
  40.  David Maljković, 1973, Rijeka, Croatia. Lives in Zagreb.
  41.  Bjarne Melgaard, 1967, Sydney, Australia. Lives in Oslo.
  42.  Jelena Mijić, 1989, Novi Sad, Serbia. Lives in Belgrade and New York.
  43.  Radenko Milak, 1980, Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Lives in Banja Luka.
  44.  Branko Milisković, 1982, Belgrade, Serbia. Lives in Belgrade
  45. Takashi Murakami, 1962, Tokyo. Lives in Tokyo.
  46.  Kazumi Nakamura, 1956, Chiba, Japan. Lives in Tokyo.
  47.  Nemanja Nikolić, 1987, Valjevo, YU. Lives in Belgrade.
  48.  Yoko Ono, 1933, Tokyo, Japan. Lives in New York.
  49.  Dušan Otašević,1940, Belgrade, YU. Lives in Belgrade.
  50.  Đorđe Ozbolt, 1967, Belgrade, YU. Lives in London.
  51.  Athena Papadopoulos, 1988, Toronto, Canada. Lives in London.
  52.  Paulo Nimer Pjota, 1988, São José do Rio Preto, Brazil. Lives in Sao Paulo.
  53.  Agnieszka Polska, 1985, Lublin, Poland. Lives in Berlin.
  54.  Magali Reus, 1981, The Hague, Netherlands. Lives in London.
  55.  Pamela Rosenkranz, 1979, Uri, Switzerland. Lives and works in Zurich.
  56.  Claude Rutault, 1941, Trois-Moutiers, France. Lives in Paris.
  57.  Torbjørn Rødland, 1970, Stavanger, Norge. Lives in Los Angeles.
  58.  Tom Sachs, 1966, New York, USA. Lives in New York.
  59.  Cindy Sherman, 1954, New York, USA. Lives in New York.
  60.  Chiharu Shiota, 1972, Osaka, Japan. Lives in Berlin.
  61.  Sumakshi Singh, 1980, New Delhi, India. Lives in Chicago..
  62.  Veličković Vladimir, 1935, Belgrade, YU. Lives in Belgrade and Paris.
  63.  Hannah Weinberger, 1988, Filderstadt, Germany. Lives in Basel and Zurich.
  64.  Anicka Yi, 1971, Seoul, South Korea. Lives in New York.
  65.  Katarina Zdjelar, 1979, Belgrade, lives in Rotterdam.
  66.  Urban Zellweger, 1991, Zurich, Switzerland. Lives in Zurich.
  67.  Xu Zhen, 1977, Shanghai, China. Lives in Shanghai.
  68. Helen Marten, 1985, Macclesfield Britain. Lives in London

Selection Balkan Project –

  1. Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, 1987, London. Lives and works in Warsaw and London.
  2. Donna Wa Kukama, 1981, Mafikeng, South Africa . Lives in Johannesburg
  3. Ana Prvački, 1976, Pančevo. Lives in Berlin