Syndicate: Venice Biennial

[Melentie Pandilovski <mpandil@soros.org.mk>]

Dear Sirs,

We would like to inform you that Macedonia does not have an official representative for 48th Venice Biennial, due to the political and economical situation of the country and on Balkans in general this year.

But this does not mean that there will not be present Macedonian fine arts scene at all.
The Macedonian artist Iskra Dimitrova is going to make the installation and performance WC (Wonderful Creatures) on a gondola from June 10 - 13, 1999. The gondola will circulate from San Marco to Giardini from 10.00 - 16.00 (on June 12, it will circulate through the canals of Venice). Curator of the project is Nebojsa Vilic.

The concept of the project is basically protest against the rough reality we live in, accented by the war situation on Balkans. The form of the protest (telling a romantic fairytale on a megaphone) looks very utopian, giving the ironical distance towards the whole situation and the project itself.

At the same time, the book "Few Candies for Venice. Art in Macedonia at the End of  Millenium", edited by Nebojsa Vilic, consisted of catalogues of the last exhibitions of Macedonian artists will be given to the audience.





Unofficial Presentation of Macedonia

Outside the programme of the 48th Venice Biennale, June 10-14, 1999, 

WC (Wonderful Creatures)

	A gondola carrying a coffin glides along the busiest stops and canals in Venice to the accompaniment of a monotonous sound. A handsome gondolier reads the text of a fairy tale through a megaphone in Italian and English (I am standing in for him while he rows). The coffin has a mirror mounted in place of a conventional base, and the sky and/or an occasional curious observer are reflected in it.
	Although at first sight the project may appear ludicrous, it is actually fairly serious, and vice versa, even though it may appear very serious, it is indeed full of irony.
	It is the auditory element that establishes the communication using both the monotonous background sound and the loud articulation of the fairy tale. Unlike my previous installations called WC (Wonderful Creatures), where the text was read quietly, this project involves an emphatic aspect of commitment (the fairy tale is 'cried out'; it is imparted through a megaphone; there is a panicky attempt at attracting attention; the work is not exhibited in classical surroundings - "there is no ground"), reflecting the protest against the current situation in the Balkans, and in Macedonia in particular.
	The project reflects on the paradox of life. Hence the entire work is composed of contradictions, starting with the title... The two fundamental counterpoints are borne by poetic, fantastic, holy and romantic elements (Venice, the city of lovers' sighs; the gondola, a paradigm of a romantic love encounter; the fairy tale of the wonderful creatures; the sky mirrored in the base of the coffin), on the one hand, and on the other, elements of earthly, realistic and concrete things and death (the Venice of Thomas Mann, of convicts' sighs; gondolas seen as coffins; the coffin itself placed in the gondola and the end of the text read aloud).
	The project presents my personal view of art as the only secure place in life: I am trying to find the meaning of the reality in which we live in the irony permeating the act of art.
	I am using a ready-made object to get closer to the moment of reality. My intention is also to look into the 'space within a space' phenomenon by achieving visual depth which involves allusions to one of the rules of the alchemists' Emerald Tablet (in the hole below there is something which is usually to be found above - the sky).
	The fairy tale text appears as a symbolic tie between human existence and that of the 'wonderful creatures', complex associations to metamorphosis, to life into which we are transformed and to death as a transformation. And all this goes on and on in a perpetual, endless circle...
	






Biography
Born in Skopje (1965). Graduated philosophy from the Faculty of Philosophy (1988) and from the School of Fine Arts (1990), University "Cyril and Methodius", Skopje. Study trip in United States (1993). 
Carried out a number of solo multimedia projects and installations: Skopje, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998, Madison, USA, 1993, Vrsac, Yugoslavia, 1996, Rochdale, England, 1996, Zagreb, Croatia, 1996. Participated on the International Festival, Sofia (Bulgaria, 1994), 5th International Biennial, Maribor (Slovenia, 1996), Liquor amnii - Macedonian and American women artists, Skopje (1996) and Providence (USA, 1997), Biennial of Contemporary Art, Selestat (France, 1997), Women artists between the Two Seas, The Saloniki (Greece, 1997), New Macedonian Art - Radiations, Skopje (1998), Brown Sugar, Nurnberg (Germany, 1999) and Narcissism, Skopje (1999).

Address: ul.Przino br.30, 91000 Skopje, Macedonia
Tel.: ++389 91 112 188
e-mail: iskrad@soros.org.mk

Contact: Violeta Simjanovska
Tel.: ++389 91 111 570; fax: ++389 91 109 303
e-mail: vsimjan@soros.org.mk


General manager of the project - Studio Azzuro






------Syndicate mailinglist--------------------
 Syndicate network for media culture and media art
 information and archive: http://www.v2.nl/syndicate
 to unsubscribe, write to <syndicate-request@aec.at>
 in the body of the msg: unsubscribe your@email.adress