I Things will disappear

K takes guidance from random events as well as from blue and green cards that rest on her washing machine.

“…The octopus often marks its location with ink, and you are telling yourself that you are in a ‘different place’ to where you are in reality. Face up to the truth. You need to move on. Do you really want to be Ka I’mana nui, the fish of many different parts “?[1]

II Disappearing Things

55th October Salon, Belgrade City Museum[2]

Under the slogan “Disappearing Things “ on the evening of the 19th September , the 55th October Salon was opened in the new building of the Belgrade City Museum. This year 32 artists participated and showcased their works that ranged from photography, multi channel video installations, small prints and few paintings and drawings.

(What was there before?)

Built in the 1899. it was a building of the Old Military Academy. During the time of the Second World War, the Germans adapted the building to the needs of the judiciary and after the liberation it was given back to the military that made it into its Printing House. The exhibition stands in the place of military memories. If one looks through the window, one of the memories, one of the traces of a military/political past still lingers there.

(How do you approach the disappearing thing?)

For this year’s curatorial team, Nicolaus Schafhausen and Vanessa Joan Müller, the starting point was the concept inspired by the social networks, in particular the new application for smart phones, Snapchat that erases messages only after few seconds. The need to be present here and now is just the paradox that the disappearing things are placed against. But does this particular juxtaposition work? The two ideas, of disappearance and of omnipresence exist from the start in two different planes. Placed against each other, they both demand their own space. So, when does the disappearance occur? How does this massive image production—as opposed to oral history, books, letters, even emails—change our collective recollection? How are our recollections constructed, and where is the individual or the collective in relation to the construction of the past is what most of the participating artists of this year’s October Salon focused on.

(Was it too loud?)

Number of artists focused on the stories of their families, of the return to an old place, old family rooms, old town, old video archives, old speech, old documentation, old competition, old unrealized projects and moments in history.

There is always a story to be told but maybe under such a slogan something should have been left out or at least the major part of a puzzle lost or even on purpose misplaced. All the works on display are more than present and with the referencing of the past only emphasize what is a “disappearing thing” rather than allowing the space left behind to speak.

III Things that disappeared

When my father asked himself years ago, where was his pencil, he realized after few seconds that the pencil was in fact in front of him. “It jumped into another reality”, he told me.

[1] “The Hawaiian Oracle – Animal spirit guides from the land of light “ , Rima Morrell
[2] Oktobarski Salon