The exhibition Low-Budget Utopias presents works that come largely from the Moderna galerija’s Arteast 2000+ Collection. This is the eighth installation of the collection in which we develop the notion of the collection as a tool. In the present exhibition we explain the collection and the museum as tools that help to sustain a utopian consciousness.
The exhibition is curated by Zdenka Badovinac and Bojana Piškur.
Jasmina Cibic’s work within this group show is the performative installation Show the Land in Which a Wide Space for National Progress is Ensured, which alludes to the soft power strategies of art and architecture utilised by (trans)national political structures. Cibic’s work further delves into the relation between the authority that assigns their representative, nation-building moment and the artist that illustrates it. In the middle of the room sits a geometric seating arrangement – a sculptural form, which the artist has drawn from the architectural plans for the redesign of the city of Belgrade that was to host the first Conference of the Non-Aligned in 1961. Shifting between theatrical props and exhibition furniture, these sculptures are provided for the spectator to rest upon and gaze at the fictitious landscape which covers the entirety of the walls. This black and white depiction of a landscape is composed from numerous photographs drawn from the archives of Josip Broz Tito’s personal photographers. From these archives Cibic collected only the images depicting the picturesque and sublime landscapes that surrounded Tito’s protocol visits – the scenography of the various protocol events scattered around the globe that were to shape the geo-politics of the post-WW2 world. Within this composite landscape, Cibic displays quotes from various political speeches on nation building from recent history. These statements are illustrated as blown up banners deposited atop trees and mountains throughout the imagined landscape. At the opening of the exhibition a special performance will take place in which two performers will be gilding this series of positive affirmations as the final act of staging Cibic’s installation.