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)
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)
