Projects — Dekadenca

Digital Cravings explores the intersection of digital culture, identity, and desire through a performance blending everyday actions with art. A silent domestic scene unfolds where a woman plays chess while a man bakes, critiquing how modern rituals and online validation shape our lives. This piece merges sculpture, video, and live interaction, provoking reflection on the commodification of human experience in the digital era.

Performers: Dekadenca, Jovan Matić
Text: Andrej Ostroški, Milica Grujić, Jovan Matić
Set design: Milica Ćoćić
Costumes: Jovan Cvetković
Lighting: Aleksandar Vučetić
Camera: Prostor Miljenko Dereta, Dražen Horvatić, Ana Božanić
Sound and video editing: Andrej Ostroški

Performance at the opening of "Digital Cravings" exhibition, curated by Milica Grujić.
Prostor Miljenko Dereta, 02.09.2024.
Supported by Rainbow Ignite and Belgrade Pride.

Critics Have Chosen, 2024: Thursday

25.01.2024-24.02.2024.

The Fine Arts Gallery of the Cultural Centre of Belgrade

Authors of the exhibition concept:
Efemerne Konfesije (Marija Balubdžić, Vladimir Bjeličić, Zoja Borovčanin, Zoe Gudović, Ilija Milošević and Andrej Ostroški) & Simona Ognjanović

Exhibitors:
Efemerne Konfesije

Exhibition architecture:
Jelena Kesić

Graphic design:
Bojana Aleksijević

The Efemerne Konfesije Drag Collective ‘performs’ at the Art Gallery of the Cultural Centre of Belgrade as part of their first solo ‘drag exhibition’ titled Thursday. The concept and structure of the exhibition are a result of a year-long collaborative effort involving the members of the collective Marija Balubdžić, Vladimir Bjeličić, Zoja Borovčanin, Zoe Gudović, Ilija Milošević and Andrej Ostroški, along with the curator Simona Ognjanović. As agreed right at the beginning of the process, there were continuous ‘inversions’ of all roles and positions, which made it possible for this exhibition to be largely ‘autocurated’.

To present their specific form of performance practice, having been developed since 2015, the members of the collective deliberately engaged in a systematic reflection on their previous work, while simultaneously looking for ways to translate the performative experience of stage music drag performance into an exhibition format. Of course, this meant engaging in the process of active creation, i.e., inventing a different (drag) language, which finally included a kind of artistic experiment. Thus, the material traces of their performances such as photographic, sound and video recordings or various props and artefacts, have been completely refunctionalized and incorporated into new artistic forms (video, collage, site-specific-sound installation).

Besides the spatial framework of a scenographic type, the dramaturgy of the entire exhibition and the movement of the visitors are largely organized by a purpose-designed scenario that was ‘performed’ for the needs of this exhibition. Compared to previous scenarios, this one is specific because it synthesizes all the issues around which the collective have gravitated in their previous practice, while of course actualizing them in the context of the moment and place in which it is created. Along this path, through a possible Thursday (popularly known as Little Friday) and the eponymous exhibition, you will be guided by the suggestive voices and witty and insightful narrations of phantom drag characters of Markiza de Sada, Dekadenca, Johana Helmut Kol, Darlin Brando, Fric Klajn, Zed Zeldić Zed, Sister Mlaćenica as well as the master of ceremonies illilillillillill. In this way, the exhibition generates a possible experience of drag-by-different-means, providing insight into the poetic and critical apparatus of Efemerne Konfesije, through which, as they say, they have always interpreted, the “social-political sourdough” in which, like everyone else, “they are up to their ears” but in which, even though ephemerally, they act actively and transformatively.

(Screenshots of the videos)

★ The exhibition is dedicated to the charming and talented Ksenija Latinović, without whom the collective Efemerne Konfesije will never be the same.

(Photo: Tanja Drobnjak)

The article by Simona Ognjanović, curator of the exhibition.
The biographies of the collective Efemerne Konfesije.

(Details of the collages)

Accompanying program to the exhibition:

Saturday, January 27, at 12 p.m.
Guiding through the exhibition

Thursday, February 8, at 7 p.m
Performance

Saturday, February 24, at 1 p.m.
Guiding through the exhibition

Ephemeral confession: a troupe of overripe fools in search for some criticism

An unrepeatable musical and stage spectacle!

After long and complex preparations, the drag collective Ephemerne Konfesije presented the first independent exhibition "Thursday", at the Fine Arts Gallery of the Cultural Center of Belgrade. In addition to the guided tour with the authors, the accompanying program of the exhibition also includes a performance, that is, the performance of the exhibition, which will take place on Thursday, February 8, in the Artget Gallery, starting at 7 p.m.

But this announcement wouldn't be complete without an informal tone that also gets Faithless Tom out of his tattered pants.

One can expect a recital, exposé, poetry evening or something completely different. While the excitement of the audience is growing and hair and beards are getting longer, we invite you with an appropriate message: What are your ephemeral thoughts, such is your ephemeral life!

APPLAUSE!

(Photo: Ksenija Ćuk)

Media coverage

Decade of Decadence!

VIDEO PERFORMANCE COMMEMORATING 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CABARET DRAG PERFORMER DEKADENCA

We made it, folks!
A decade of decadence!

The late, great Elaine Stritch, who popularized this song on Broadway, may have been saying that anyone younger than eighty should not be performing this song. But I believe that, had she spent ten years doing drag in the Balkans, like I have, she might have agreed with me performing it.

Also, it goes without saying that this rendition is a nod to Eartha Kitt's one, as she is my eternal, nine-lived, inspiration and the embodiment of the perseverance and tenacity of the human spirit.

The video, on the other hand, is a bit of an homage to another Stephen Sondheim musical, "Gypsy", and the song "Rose's Turn", specifically the version played by Imelda Staunton, which is a hauntingly beautiful representation of a powerful female character disturbed by the years of aspiring to be a part of the business we call show.

This song and video performance are a big thank you to all the women and people who inspired and supported me throughout these years of pioneering the drag scene in the Balkans.

Three cheers and, dammit, c'est la vie!

***

Singer: Dekadenca
Music and lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
Arrangement and piano: Katarina Ranković a.k.a. Lady K
Sound production: Marija Balubdžić
DOP and camera: Ksenija Ćuk
Editing: Andrej Ostroški, Ksenija Ćuk
Hair: Ljubica Kafekuvarica
Dress: vintage Emina Hodžić piece

Archive footage from the 2012 premiere of Chicago: A Musical Vaudeville by Le Studio musical theater school, with Ivana Rakić in the role of MC.

Special thanks to Anita Al-Anbaki and Culture and education center Rakovica for being wonderful hosts for our night of filming.

***

#Dekadenca
#DragQueen #Drag #Transformista
#10thAnniversary #10years
#DecadeOfDecadence
#ElaineStritch #EarthaKitt #ImeldaStaunton
#StephenSondheim #Follies #ImStillHere
#Belgrade #Serbia #2022

Two-day festival dedicated to the art of drag that has presented over 20 local and regional drag artists!

DRAGOSLAVIA Live x Belgrade 2022 festival produced by Andrej Ostroški was supported by the Creative Producers programme developed by the British Council in the Western Balkans. Production of this festival was also made possible with the support of the Swedish Embassy in Belgrade, NGO Kulturnacija, NGO ReGeneration, NGVU New Gallery of Visual Arts and Cultural Center of Belgrade.

Executive Producers: Anđela Tadić and Mila Miljković