Art Weekend Belgrade

Art Weekend Belgrade is a manifestation initiated by KC Grad with an aim of promoting and developing the local contemporary art scene, to present local artist’s works to the wider audience, as well as to enable meeting and collaboration with foreign curators.

Art Weekend Belgrade – AWB / June 6th – 16th, 2024

Belgrade Art Weekend – BAW / Belgrade Art Weekend is an event initiated in 2019 by the Cultural Front and KC Grad with the aim of supporting the development of the local creative scene and providing better visibility for artists, as well as contacts with a broader audience, international artists, and curators. Collaboration between artistic scenes, finding new ways of visibility, knowledge exchange, and experiences is very important for the professional development of artists and cultural workers. BAW gathers and maps a large number of participants such as museums, galleries, independent cultural centers, and artistic spaces that contribute together to the rich event program.

AWB 2024 / “Questions of Belonging / Pitanja Pripadnosti”

Curator of the exhibition: Merle Radtke / Assistant curator: Miriam Edmunds

Artistic director: Ljudmila Stratimirović

Locations of this year’s exhibitions produced by KC Grad in collaboration with guest curators:

Kc Grad / Braće Krsmanović 4

Španska Kuća / Braće Krsmanovic 2

Passage at the Palace of Albania / Kolarceva 4, Podzemni prolaz bb

Former restaurant Beijing, Vuka Karadžića 2

Former Staklopan factory, Strahinjića bana 11

Program:

JUNE 6

Kc Grad

10h – 16h, creative writing workshop with Chloe Stead and Alexander Leissle

18h – 22h, Ramzi Hazboun, “Mirror Puzzle”, video – musical performance

19h, opening of the exhibition “Questions of Belonging”

Artists: Artan Hajrullahu, Ognjen Milanović, Teodora Nešković, Danijela Pivašević-Tenner, Katarina Šaptović, Anika Vajagić

Spanish house

 21h, GRADsky agent show #3, musical – dance – visual performance

Passage at the Palace of Albania

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Artists: Nikola Dimitrović, Dea Džanković, Sofija Pavković

12h – 20h, Dea Džanković, “Frequency of Belonging”, performance

Former restaurant Beijing

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Artists: Danilo Ceković, Dunja Čorlomanović, Daria Goncharova, Pedro Barateiro, Kasja Jerlagić, Emilija Terzić, Adrienn Újházi, Yao Wang, Aleksandar Rakezić

Former Staklopan factory

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Artists: Yao Wang, Aleksandra Kovačević, Nataša Kokić, Hanna Priemetzhofer, Nina Zeljković, Kemil Bekteši, Rena Rädle & Vladan Jeremic, Nikola Radosavljević, Sanja Vasić, Olga Holzschuh

JUNE 7

Kc Grad

11h, creative writing workshop with Chloe Stead and Alexander Leissle

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

19h, AWB talks: Selfie at AWB

Participants: Nela Tonković, curator at Contemporary Gallery Subotica

Ana Knežević, curator at the Museum of African Art, Belgrade

Sanda Kalebić, curator at U10 Art Space, Belgrade

Ana Simona Zelenović, independent curator and editor in the yearbook Selfie

Spanish house

15h  “South – East / South – West”, Torbjörn Johansson, Daniela Hedman, instalacija u prostoru, performans

20h “Present Perfect”, plesna predstava

dencers: Olga Uzikaeva, Rade Obradović, Maksim Korolev; muzičari: Miloš Dimitrijević, Dulce Melos; video: Maksim Korolev

Underground passage at the Palace of Albania

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

12 – 20h, Dea Džanković, “Frequency of Belonging”, performance

17h, “This is no place to sit” Nikola Dimitrović, performance

Former restaurant Beijing

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Former Staklopan factory

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Cultural Center Belgrade

18h, film “Art Talent Show”, by Adéla Komrzý and Tomáš Bojar

20h, film “Radical Creatives” by Ms. Emilia Hernesniemi

21h, interview with the authors: Emilia Hernesniemi and Šaban Ramadani and Žarko Aleksić, professor at FPU, Lidija Ristić, founder of I:BICA. Moderator: Brajan Vojinović

JUNE 8

Kc Grad

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

14 30h – 2030 h, “WOC x Izraz Fundraiser Jam”, dance performance

Underground passage at the Palace of Albania

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

12h- 20h, Dea Džanković, “Frequency of Belonging”, performance

17h, “This is no place to sit” Nikola Dimitrović, performance

Former restaurant Beijing

12 – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

17h, AWB Talks: “On resisting to belong”

Moderator: Tamara Tomić Vajagić

Participans : Merle Radtke, Pedro Barateiro, Giulio Verago, Veronika Molnar, Alexander Leissle

Former Staklopan factory

12 – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Terazije Square; and Footnote Centre for Image and Text, Kralja Milutina 34;

Phygital Narratives: Exploring Art’s Hybrid Dimensions – Footnote Center for Image and Text presents DAS WEISSE HAUS and its dwhX space

18h Exhibition in the underground passage, Terazije Square (empty space next to “Zla shop”)

19h Discussion at Footnote Centre for Image and Text, Kralja Milutina 34

Collaboration between the art associations Footnote Center for Image and Text (Belgrade) and DAS WEISSE HAUS (Vienna) / (Nevena Janković, Eva Kovač and Elena Blum from DAS WEISSE HAUS team, the artist Rebecca Merlić and Mia Ćuk, the founder and coordinator of Foootnote Centre for Image and Text)

JUNE 9

Kc Grad

12 – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

20h, Guided tour through the exhibition with curator Merle Radtke and assistant curator  Miriam Edmunds

21h, “I remember” Nadja Pavlović, performance

Spanish house

21 30h, Beton Kunst, performance

Underground passage at the Palace of Albania

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

12h – 20h, Dea Džanković, “Frequency of Belonging”, performance

17h, “This is no place to sit” Nikola Dimitrović, performance

19h, guided tour through the exhibition with curator Merle Radtke and assistant curator  Miriam Edmunds

Former restaurant Beijing

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

18h, guided tour through the exhibition with curator Merle Radtke and assistant curator Miriam Edmunds

Former Staklopan factory

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

17h, guided tour through the exhibition with curator Merle Radtke and assistant curator Miriam Edmunds

17h, “Two songs”, performance by Sanja Vasić

JUNE 10

Kc Grad

12h – 20h, exhibition Questions of Belonging 

Underground passage at the Palace of Albania

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Former restaurant Beijing

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Former Staklopan factory

12 – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

JUNE 11

Kc Grad

12h – 20h, exhibition Questions of Belonging

17h – 18h, AWB Talks: “Alternative belongings”

Moderator: Tamara Tomić Vajagić

Participants: local and international artists, curators, organizers who live and work in Belgrade

Underground passage at the Palace of Albania

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Former restaurant Beijing

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Former Staklopan factory

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

JUNE 12

 Kc Grad

12h – 20h, exhibition Questions of Belonging

Underground passage at the Palace of Albania

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Former restaurant Beijing

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Former Staklopan factory

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Kralja Petra 82 (corner of Kralja Petra and Cara Dušana street)

16h, What Could Should Curating Do / Poetic Nostalgia with Dea Džanković

JUNE 13 – 16

 Kc Grad

 12h – 20h, exhibition Questions of Belonging

Underground passage at the Palace of Albania

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Former restaurant Beijing

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

Former Staklopan factory

12h – 20h, “Questions of Belonging” exhibition

AWB 2024, guest curator: Merle Radtke, curator, director of Kunsthalle Munster

Merle Radtke has been the director of Kunsthalle Munster since 2018. She creates and implements exhibitions and public programs. She has collaborated with artists such as Mary Beth Edelson, Christiane Blattmann, Katia Kameli, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Mikolaj Sobczak, Pedro Barateiro, and Dominique White. Merle also runs the residency program for curators and artists NRV +. She is responsible for the large collection of public art in the city, which includes works by Claes Oldenburg, Rebecca Horn, Donald Judd, Silke Wagner, and many other significant artists. Before becoming the director of Kunsthalle Munster, she worked as a curator for the Hamburger Kunsthalle and Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, as well as a curator and selector of art films. From 2015 to 2017, she was a research associate in the postgraduate program Virtual Aesthetics at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. In 2018, she was a fellow at the Villa Kamogawa Goethe Institute in Japan. She regularly publishes articles on contemporary art and culture. ….. Merle Radtke’s Concept Proposal for BAW 2024

Questions of Belonging – Belgrade Art Weekend 2024

Where do I belong? A question that can be asked for various reasons and often doesn’t have a straightforward answer. It can relate to a state of in-betweenness, a sense of loss, a condition of belonging everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. It’s a deeply personal question that simultaneously considers larger social contexts. The main exhibition of this year’s Belgrade Art Weekend (BAW) plays with the fundamental means of orientation and disorientation. It addresses the question of belonging and non-belonging at a time when the world seems to be increasingly off-kilter, marked by a lack of orientation and helplessness, with discontent and detachment widespread.

The exhibition aims to focus on how we can change the way we relate to each other and to the world around us, posing several questions: Where does our sense of belonging come from – whether it’s to a place or a community? What stories do we share? What is our heritage? What provides us with stability? What can function as an anchor? What role do history, heritage, tradition, and collective memory play? How does the past inscribe itself into the present and future? What enables us to break free from roles that seem fixed? What does it mean to be part of a social community? Given or chosen? What makes us family, what kind of companions? What constitutes a community? What does the concept of home mean? What if the sense of belonging is fraught with contradictions? And how does belonging relate to contemporary questions of identity?

Belonging, and its opposite, alienation, shape our identity, our relationships, the society around us, the world at large. Sometimes, that sense is defined by longing, whether for the past or for a place left behind. Everything from language and nationality to the state apparatus itself can be used as a means to political ends; to either foster or undermine our collective sense of togetherness.

The exhibition poses questions of polarization that sustain racial, religious, and class divisions (extractive capitalism). Therefore, forms of disintegration play an increasingly important role as a form of resilience. The exhibition uses resilience to respond to the current state of perpetual crisis, reviving and celebrating plural narratives outside normative dominance. What can we learn by sharing different positions, different perspectives? And how can the diversity of existences and their ways of life establish and maintain connections with each other, and what symbiotic relationships can emerge from it? Ultimately, there is nothing that is defined, but a multitude of stories inviting exploration.

The works in the exhibition can serve as instruments of self-assurance, allowing us to question our position in the world. They allow us to stay in touch with our humanity while providing space for vulnerability, imagination, and dreams. Art here serves as an instrument for modifying consciousness and organizing new modes of affectivity, to reflect on the past and present, to put forth ideas for the future so that we can together shape a new paradigm of life as we desire.