ART AND SOCIETY: TRANSITIONAL / POLITICAL CHANGES:
Macedonian Art in the Period of Transition 1992-2007
Macedonian Art in the Period of Transition 1992-2007
1.
On the occasion of the exhibition “Dialogues: the Macedonian Art Today”, curated by the author of this text and presented in Paris in 2003 by the National Gallery of Macedonia, Philippe Davet - the art critic of the renowned “Le Monde” - featured the Macedonian art as “… a furious echo of the historical turbulences”, including “… artworks unexpectedly furious for that region”. Davet was even more specific when he wrote that “the Macedonian artists … show artworks that are chiefly furious, some of which are gloomy humorous, making your blood freeze”, pointing that “the youngest ones, those born in the 1960s, are the ones who hit the hardest”.[1]
And it is true: since 1945[2] the contemporary Macedonian art has never been that openly direct, that society-based and reality / "political" oriented ... like in the past fifteen years. Having in mind that these were the years of especially difficult period of transition - of dissolving of Yugoslavia and establishing (once again) the independence and sovereignty, of economic decline and people loosing their jobs, of ridiculous problems with the neighboring countries (questioning the name of the country, the language, the national identity) ... - then somebody might say that it was a fertile soil for reality-based art to flourish!
Put like this, somebody might find that I promote the idea of the dominating "outer" influence on art, influences that primarily come from the "outside world" (the society, history, life itself etc.). Like "empty stomach makes better art" or art needs an external push to really “hit hard”! But it is not true. Art, of course, and it is beyond any doubt, has its "inner" drivers, autonomous logic and way of development.[3] But here, when I speak about the Macedonian art in the past fifteen years, it appears that the reality itself - the happenings in the "real world", the everyday problems etc. - were the initial trigger for the artists to re-think, to re-consider the emerging society and its fundamental appearances: the historic, social, economic, political ... angles of the present. And to re-think, to re-consider their own position in the society as well!
The questions that immediately arise in this context are: did (or did not) Macedonian artists have such "inspiring" reality (meaning: political, economic, social etc.) challenges in the past; was the Macedonian so called socialist society that good and without problems of any kind; or were the Macedonian artists that self-censored and careful not to fall into trouble with the regime? Is it really all questions of democracy and self-consciousness?
Yes, absolutely! Of course there were problems - really big ones - in the so-called socialist society: economic and social problems, cultural and educational problems, human rights and all other problems you can think off. There had been bold situations and sensitive times; there had been public conflicts and radical measures - but very few artistic responses. The so-called dissidents were more a myth than a reality. There were rebellious intellectuals and of course artists among them, but very few whom you can really call dissidents. And their voices were always outspoken by the choir. There were, of course, people / artists living on the margins of the society but not because of their rebellious art but because of their bad art![4]
Maybe somebody will object that the presence of Abstract art and Informal art in the socialist / communist countries was also a kind of rebellious art and act of disobedience against the regime and its rules in culture and art. But the problem is that the regime did not see it / understand it like that! At least not at the very begining. After that - it was too late.[5]
Since the essence of this text is focused on the period of the past fifteen years – which also imposes a kind of strict ideological / political discourse - I have to stress once again that the society changes in Macedonia (and in the region) after the fall of the Berlin Wall had an essential influence on everything else, art as well. Macedonian art seemed to need such a radical historical upheaval in order to be awakened from the fairly comfortable and, without a doubt, the hibernating sleep known as social reality. Freedom from the ideological clamps and from the high-level self-censorship meant unlocking the feelings and the memory, openness for communication with the past, the present and the future. As there was no longer a single Dominant Truth, all individual truths were now genuine!
It is also true, at least as far as it refers to the mainstream of Macedonian art in the period of transition, that the advocate of this changes - the ones who "hit the hardest” - was the younger generation of Macedonian artists. Especially in the past ten years the younger generation of Macedonian artists dominate on the Macedonian art scene with their particular interest in dialogue, comment, statement, thinking... about the segments of reality that we usually call everyday life, or current events. This art, which is based on the committed role of artists and their art in society, can also be described as art of positioning. To be more precise, these artists are ready to take individual responsibility and publicly declare their own views on a number of crucial issues of local and global significance. And this is a relatively new situation in Macedonian art: artists take independent, active positions and quite openly and clearly, often harshly or ironically speak out about current situations in society. Showing great interest in current problems, and being ardently committed, their artistic statements deal with some of the most pressing issues in Macedonia’s reality (and, indeed, beyond Macedonia’s borders): war/survival, identity/globalization, and democracy/totalitarianism. What is also interesting is the fact that some of these artists often reach back to the past, to history and “tradition”... revisiting and bringing up to date various topics in their contemporary contexts.
What is also interesting is that even though most of this young (or younger) generation artists are perhaps typical postmodernist artists, the lethargy of postmodernism clearly does not suit their temperament। Or more precisely, they are not happy with the benevolent ideas that describe art as something else. Because art is (also) a position, and the artist must state his or her position in public, especially during times and processes of great ideological / political turbulences. Does this mean that the artist will make a mistake if, by stating his/her position, he/she takes a side? But, can it be any different?
Their position is clear and uncompromising. It is based on fully analyzed, elaborated and synthesized ideas about the major processes of today. Their position for or against something is not in the least incidental or guided by accidental emotions. It is rather a position built on a solid foundation of basic human categories about which there can simply be no doubt.
2.
In this respect we can safely assume that post-1990 Macedonian art has two main currents:
- Markedly committed: these works of art are characteristic for their provocatively open and direct views of or answers to current situations;
- Subtly referential: these works of art place an emphasis on personal, intimate and even poetic narration, but with clear and recognizable general allusions and situations.
Here are some examples.
On the occasion of the exhibition “Dialogues: the Macedonian Art Today”, curated by the author of this text and presented in Paris in 2003 by the National Gallery of Macedonia, Philippe Davet - the art critic of the renowned “Le Monde” - featured the Macedonian art as “… a furious echo of the historical turbulences”, including “… artworks unexpectedly furious for that region”. Davet was even more specific when he wrote that “the Macedonian artists … show artworks that are chiefly furious, some of which are gloomy humorous, making your blood freeze”, pointing that “the youngest ones, those born in the 1960s, are the ones who hit the hardest”.[1]
And it is true: since 1945[2] the contemporary Macedonian art has never been that openly direct, that society-based and reality / "political" oriented ... like in the past fifteen years. Having in mind that these were the years of especially difficult period of transition - of dissolving of Yugoslavia and establishing (once again) the independence and sovereignty, of economic decline and people loosing their jobs, of ridiculous problems with the neighboring countries (questioning the name of the country, the language, the national identity) ... - then somebody might say that it was a fertile soil for reality-based art to flourish!
Put like this, somebody might find that I promote the idea of the dominating "outer" influence on art, influences that primarily come from the "outside world" (the society, history, life itself etc.). Like "empty stomach makes better art" or art needs an external push to really “hit hard”! But it is not true. Art, of course, and it is beyond any doubt, has its "inner" drivers, autonomous logic and way of development.[3] But here, when I speak about the Macedonian art in the past fifteen years, it appears that the reality itself - the happenings in the "real world", the everyday problems etc. - were the initial trigger for the artists to re-think, to re-consider the emerging society and its fundamental appearances: the historic, social, economic, political ... angles of the present. And to re-think, to re-consider their own position in the society as well!
The questions that immediately arise in this context are: did (or did not) Macedonian artists have such "inspiring" reality (meaning: political, economic, social etc.) challenges in the past; was the Macedonian so called socialist society that good and without problems of any kind; or were the Macedonian artists that self-censored and careful not to fall into trouble with the regime? Is it really all questions of democracy and self-consciousness?
Yes, absolutely! Of course there were problems - really big ones - in the so-called socialist society: economic and social problems, cultural and educational problems, human rights and all other problems you can think off. There had been bold situations and sensitive times; there had been public conflicts and radical measures - but very few artistic responses. The so-called dissidents were more a myth than a reality. There were rebellious intellectuals and of course artists among them, but very few whom you can really call dissidents. And their voices were always outspoken by the choir. There were, of course, people / artists living on the margins of the society but not because of their rebellious art but because of their bad art![4]
Maybe somebody will object that the presence of Abstract art and Informal art in the socialist / communist countries was also a kind of rebellious art and act of disobedience against the regime and its rules in culture and art. But the problem is that the regime did not see it / understand it like that! At least not at the very begining. After that - it was too late.[5]
Since the essence of this text is focused on the period of the past fifteen years – which also imposes a kind of strict ideological / political discourse - I have to stress once again that the society changes in Macedonia (and in the region) after the fall of the Berlin Wall had an essential influence on everything else, art as well. Macedonian art seemed to need such a radical historical upheaval in order to be awakened from the fairly comfortable and, without a doubt, the hibernating sleep known as social reality. Freedom from the ideological clamps and from the high-level self-censorship meant unlocking the feelings and the memory, openness for communication with the past, the present and the future. As there was no longer a single Dominant Truth, all individual truths were now genuine!
It is also true, at least as far as it refers to the mainstream of Macedonian art in the period of transition, that the advocate of this changes - the ones who "hit the hardest” - was the younger generation of Macedonian artists. Especially in the past ten years the younger generation of Macedonian artists dominate on the Macedonian art scene with their particular interest in dialogue, comment, statement, thinking... about the segments of reality that we usually call everyday life, or current events. This art, which is based on the committed role of artists and their art in society, can also be described as art of positioning. To be more precise, these artists are ready to take individual responsibility and publicly declare their own views on a number of crucial issues of local and global significance. And this is a relatively new situation in Macedonian art: artists take independent, active positions and quite openly and clearly, often harshly or ironically speak out about current situations in society. Showing great interest in current problems, and being ardently committed, their artistic statements deal with some of the most pressing issues in Macedonia’s reality (and, indeed, beyond Macedonia’s borders): war/survival, identity/globalization, and democracy/totalitarianism. What is also interesting is the fact that some of these artists often reach back to the past, to history and “tradition”... revisiting and bringing up to date various topics in their contemporary contexts.
What is also interesting is that even though most of this young (or younger) generation artists are perhaps typical postmodernist artists, the lethargy of postmodernism clearly does not suit their temperament। Or more precisely, they are not happy with the benevolent ideas that describe art as something else. Because art is (also) a position, and the artist must state his or her position in public, especially during times and processes of great ideological / political turbulences. Does this mean that the artist will make a mistake if, by stating his/her position, he/she takes a side? But, can it be any different?
Their position is clear and uncompromising. It is based on fully analyzed, elaborated and synthesized ideas about the major processes of today. Their position for or against something is not in the least incidental or guided by accidental emotions. It is rather a position built on a solid foundation of basic human categories about which there can simply be no doubt.
2.
In this respect we can safely assume that post-1990 Macedonian art has two main currents:
- Markedly committed: these works of art are characteristic for their provocatively open and direct views of or answers to current situations;
- Subtly referential: these works of art place an emphasis on personal, intimate and even poetic narration, but with clear and recognizable general allusions and situations.
Here are some examples.
The photo-installation entitled Twelve Silver Soldiers by Robert Jankulovski can also be named Historia est magistra vitae, since his work looks at Macedonia’s history in the 20th century, projecting it onto the events - the ethnic conflict in 2001 - in the same territory at the beginning of the new millennium. Have we really not learnt anything from history, or the fact that it repeats itself is beyond our powers, inevitable, or predestined? The matter-of-fact quality of Jankulovski’s work is too strong and leaves no room for doubt. His historical “multinational platoon” marches on today like an apocalyptic formation of destruction, like “a living recognizable image of death” (Baudrillard).
The earlier projects of Slavica Janešlieva were mainly concentrated on the general modalities of “inter-subjectivity” and the autoreflexive, but at the same time were deeply tied to a number of pressing (traditional, moral, etc.) dilemmas of consequence for local environments. But her project-installation A Cry (2002) prompted by the current ecological disaster of Lake Dojran, once again established a connection between the personal (pain caused by the extinction of the lake’s aquatic world) and the general (current situations in Macedonian society). The two (hospital) beds are in fact Procrustean beds. The first is the “Bed of Macedonian National Consciousness”, with a spread Macedonian flag and a pillow with an embroidered quotation from the account of a 1906 journey by H.N. Brailsford. Second is the “Wailing Bed”, covered by dead shells taken from the shores of Lake Dojran. The entire “scene” is an explicit scream — pain materialized, a striking metaphor of the traumatic temptations of Macedonia’s everyday reality. In such context are also the works: Fragility of Life (2003), The Game (2005), Jars with Wishes for Things to Disappear (2005) etc.
The philosophical, aesthetic and ethical interests and the inherently committed multimedia “handwriting” of Žaneta Vangeli have for more than a decade been directed towards deciphering the continuity of (non) accidental global and local synchronicities. Sometimes minimalist and “stingy” in their statement but, as a rule, visually and aesthetically impressive and effective, Vangeli’s works, although often apparently hermetic, insist on mobilizing the complete human apparatus of perception and comprehension. Her project FYROM Experiment, whose title speaks enough for itself, belongs to her series of concise, committed visual memoranda on current topics: globalism, integrations, new world order, etc. Vangeli ironically combines the past and present, concrete historical references (Macedonia’s 17th-century coat of arms acquires a “new name” - FYROM) and associations to biblical themes (The Last Supper, the Treacherous Kiss) with the modern “icons” of neo-colonialism (Coca Cola). In similar context are also her great works: the project Integralism (prepared for the Venice Biennial 2003), the experimental film The Judge etc.
The works of Aleksandar Stankovski — his paintings, video projects, installations or films in an equal sense — are always metaphors, allegories and demystifications of concrete global processes and events. He is an unorthodox nomad wandering through times both historical and contemporary, a tireless globetrotter along the meridians of current events and processes that he connects and combines with a Merlin-like charm, with comments and often ironic remarks. Of course, his stance allows him to expound on his “favorite” subjects, situations and figures, which he magically and passionately pastes together as collages into virtual and phantasmagoric interactions. Always attentive, he never fails to record a global or local outburst of mundane human stupidity or unacceptable aggression — the constant variants of totalitarian consciousness and of tyrannical manifestations. These go always together with his favourite figures, the modern ideological “heroes,” mystifiers and mythomaniacs — Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Tito or Osama bin Laden — in unexpected but, for the spectator, always intriguing and complex combinations and situations. As a rule, Stankovski combines this sarcastic collage and virtual vision of the global “we” with hermetic sections, symbols and details — indications of his “I”.
And, of course, these are only few examples that do not exhaust the list.In that respect the names of Dijana Tomic, Atanas Botev, Ismet Ramicevic, Gordana Apostolovska etc,
should be mentioned.
On the other hand and not far aside from these two main currents, Macedonian artists were getting involved in different aspects of social life. Their works showed their viewpoint, their attitude towards questions of wider public interest that usually had nothing to do with the artistic world or were not necessary connected with the artistic community. In this respect several lines can be recognised:
- Artworks that refer as a critic of the cultural / artistic institutional system;
- Artworks that deal with cultural relations;
- Artworks that explore the relation artist / community, etc[6]
Still, it would be unjust not to mention that along with this “main streamlines” in the Macedonian contemporary art scene numerous artists coexist yet taking their creative interests to utterly different directions.
Finally, in the context of the Macedonian art in the period of transition 1992-2007 the great Josef Beuys comes to mind with his statement that in human nature there are three beings: natural, social and free. And, paraphrasing the legendary artist, I would say that in the period 1945-1992 the Macedonian art lived its social being. Since 1992 the stage has been opened for the free artistic being!
[1] Philippe Davet, L'art macedonien, ou l'echo violentdes soubresauts historiques, Le Monde, 04.04.2003.
[2] For the first time in 1945 Macedonia gained independence within the Yugoslavian Federation.
[3] On the other hand, we can always argue whether there really is "out" and "in", what is outside and what inside world ... or, after all, it all is One!? But it is something to be discussed on some other occasion.
[4] This question is still in the public focus and has not yet been completely explained in the ex-socialist / ex-communist countries.
[5] This, of course, is a complex question that needs much more space to be explained!
[6] More about this see in: Nebojsa Vilic, The Artist in Conversation; Who is the Macedonian Artist Talking to?, The National Gallery of Macedonia, Skopje, 2002
- Artworks that refer as a critic of the cultural / artistic institutional system;
- Artworks that deal with cultural relations;
- Artworks that explore the relation artist / community, etc[6]
Still, it would be unjust not to mention that along with this “main streamlines” in the Macedonian contemporary art scene numerous artists coexist yet taking their creative interests to utterly different directions.
Finally, in the context of the Macedonian art in the period of transition 1992-2007 the great Josef Beuys comes to mind with his statement that in human nature there are three beings: natural, social and free. And, paraphrasing the legendary artist, I would say that in the period 1945-1992 the Macedonian art lived its social being. Since 1992 the stage has been opened for the free artistic being!
[1] Philippe Davet, L'art macedonien, ou l'echo violentdes soubresauts historiques, Le Monde, 04.04.2003.
[2] For the first time in 1945 Macedonia gained independence within the Yugoslavian Federation.
[3] On the other hand, we can always argue whether there really is "out" and "in", what is outside and what inside world ... or, after all, it all is One!? But it is something to be discussed on some other occasion.
[4] This question is still in the public focus and has not yet been completely explained in the ex-socialist / ex-communist countries.
[5] This, of course, is a complex question that needs much more space to be explained!
[6] More about this see in: Nebojsa Vilic, The Artist in Conversation; Who is the Macedonian Artist Talking to?, The National Gallery of Macedonia, Skopje, 2002
