[:en]Irene Kelečević "Where Is My Place" 19.01 – 19.03.2018.Museum of Contemporary Art

Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art (Pariska 14)
January 19 – March 19, 2018
Opening of the exhibition on Friday, January 19 at 7 pm
Curator: Una Popovic
Working hours: from 12 to 20 hours, except Tuesdays
Free entry

Site-specific intervention Irene Kelečević titled “Where Is My Place” deals with the research of the identity of the space related to the building where the Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art is located in Paris Street, number 14. Residential building with an exhibition gallery on the ground floor, the work of the architect Miroslav-Mirko Jovanovic, is also called “the artist’s building” (Goran V. Anđelković), since it was built for the needs of housing, music studies, painting studios and exhibitions of eminent artists from the mid-20th century.

This concept of housing and exhibition space, built from 1956 to 1960 as a bold and innovative solution at that time, enabled the Moderna galerija Salon (later the Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art) to become the position of a relevant place as a driving force but also one of the witnesses of the decennial social , economic and, above all, cultural changes in Belgrade.

The work “Where is my place” consists of several segments: drawings in space, framed drawings and collages, interventions from an old cellar that transforms space into a form of mizan, and photographs. In the role of a spatial narrator, more than the architecture itself and the life of the building, the artist deals with the significance of the city, the symbolism of what was once the place and what it is today. Starting from the basic facts related to the location, without knowing more about people, identities, spaces, stories, it moves in the construction of the identity of the city with a reverse method. Setting himself as a key player, revealing, sets the question in the first person (“Where is my place”), launches an intervention that stands between facts and imagination, revelation, and historiography. Returning to the primary function of the location in the Paris 14 – residential building with studios, a multi-decade exhibition space – the artist raises the question of what becomes the basis of acting, that is, the consideration of personal artistic identity, now and here.

Irena Kelečević (1975) graduated and received a master’s degree at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, where she currently holds doctoral studies. In his work, he explores the personal space and its connections with the public space, which is not defined only by traditional architecture, but rather appears as a product of social practice, since it is used, occupied and transformed by everyday activities.

Since 2003 she has been exhibiting in Serbia and abroad. She has realized several projects in the gallery and public space, within BELEF, October Salon, Memorandum Nadezda Petrović, Kuenka (Cuenca) Biennial in Ecuador and in cooperation with the Youth Center of Belgrade, Student Center of Culture, MKM, Zvono Gallery, Remont , Belgrade Art Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art, Art Gallery Nadezda Petrovic in Cacak, National Museum in Kraljevo, Cultural Center in Pozega, Štaturm Gallery (Stadtturmgalerie) in Innsbruck, Austria, Califia Gallery in the Czech Republic, etc.