The Montenegrin pavilion at the 60th Biennale of Contemporary Art in Venice will be opened on April 18, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro (MSUCG) announced.
The commissioner of the setting is the director of the MSUCG Vladislav Scepanovic, is a curator Ana Simona Zelenović, and Montenegro will be represented by an internationally recognized fine artist Darja Bajagić, with the work "It takes an island to feel this good". Instead of the previous space in Palazzo Malipiero, the Pavilion will be in the Venetian district of Ospedaleto, with the pretension of greater visibility and better presentation.
For this world art fair, Bajagić prepared a work dealing with the island and the former Mamula camp. It is a research concept that combines the past and the present, examines the culture of memory, but also numerous global phenomena of consumerist society, and all of this is a combination of several different media, from images, photography, videos, documentary testimonies...
Curator Zelenović previously explained that the process of Darja Bajagić's work on this project began a few years ago with the research of archival and field materials related to Mamula.
"The project is interesting for several reasons - Mamula herself has a complex history, and some history of relations, both of Montenegro as a state, and of relations with collective memory and relations with cultural heritage, can be traced, and this is what makes the artist and otherwise he is interested in her work", said Zelenović earlier.
The project seeks to present collective memory and reflection on the relationship to the common historical heritage, and the artist explores these topics through painting and sculpture, with a special focus on the complex and multi-layered history of the Montenegrin island of Mamula, according to the project description on the MSUCG official website.
"You need an island to feel this good" continues and builds on the theme of the Biennale "Strangers everywhere", Adrian Pedrosa in many ways, from the very context of the Austro-Hungarian island-fortress, and further through various aspects, to the very personal experience of Bajagić.
The patron of the Pavilion is the Ministry of Culture and Media of Montenegro, which allocated 80.000 euros for the presentation and artistic concept, and in addition allocated additional funds for the new space. Minister Tamara Vujović found the concept of the work interesting, pointing out that she is particularly pleased that the topic of the island of Mamula will be presented to the world audience, in the innovative space for the Montenegrin pavilion.
Bajagić was born in 1990 in Podgorica, and grew up in Egypt and the United States. She graduated in fine arts from the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon, in 2012, and received her master's degree from the Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut, in 2014, becoming the first citizen of Montenegro to graduate from postgraduate studies at the prestigious university.
From 2008 to 2014, during her undergraduate and postgraduate studies, Bajagić was a Lemelson Scholar, based on merit and exceptional talent. The scholarship is funded by one of the largest private foundations in Oregon, "Lemelson", and is awarded to one student annually.
Bajagić presented herself to the Montenegrin public for the first time in 2020 at the traditional Montenegrin art salon "13. novembar" in Cetinje, at the invitation of the selector, art historian and art critic Petar Ćuković. That's when the desire to be more present on the Montenegrin art scene and to become more familiar with social and artistic currents arose.
He works and lives between Luštica and Chicago.
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