Igor Antic

16. june, 2007.

On Saturday 16th June, 2007 , the installation “Advertising Space” made by Igor Antic , an artist, was put on a façade of a building in 7 Ilije Ognjanovića Street, in the center of Novi Sad. “This project is the result of discussions on the lack of exhibition space for contemporary art in Novi Sad. According to some claims, art and culture are pushed into the background by business. Accordingly, it is claimed that the city is “flooded” with billboards that are violating its image. My intention is to join those aspects, by this mural, with those that are regarded as “purely cultural or artistic”, or to be more precise, to mix something that is regarded as “ordinary or tasteless” but is economically inevitable and should satisfy high artistic criteria. My mural should blend in the city surrounding to such extent that it could easily be mixed up with the rest of the commercial and advertising billboards.” The installation consists of a 13 x 10 m printed photograph and an electronic display with a text bar and running text on it, representing advertising space. Citizens can send text messages and advertisements in the form of pre-paid text messages. With the money raised in this way, the building for Contemporary Art Centre is planned to be built. “Before anything else, my project should be understood as an attempt to, by means of humour, blend art into the everyday life of the city. “ In this installation exposed to the looks of the passers-by, the talent for advertising and business, for coping with the complex economic conditions would intertwine with one of the burning issues for artists, historians, critics, gallery workers and artistic audience.” Igor Antic

MADE IN NOVI SAD

05. july, 2007.

Irina Subotic, Svetlana Mladenov, Suzana Vuksanovic, Jasmina Cubrilo, Dusan Todorovic, Galerija Tableau, Novi Sad, 2007.

For a certain number of years, even decades, there have been no reviews of the national artistic scene which could, at least for a moment, make our visual art a relevant factor in the global artistic exchange. Instead of applying a classical historical approach to art, based on waiting for the boiling artistic scene to calm down and waiting for the more significant individuals and achievements to stand out from the crowd, a group of authors accepted the invitation of a small private “Tableau” gallery and its owner Natali Beljanski to investigate the current art production of Novi Sad. Whether we define them as a scene or as a group of artists that function at the same time in a city with no artistic infrastructure or market (i.e. the appropriate logistic support of the media), this group of around 60 artists (many of them having an enviable international reputation) that were presented in the book “Made in Novi Sad”, instead of having mostly positions of self-reference as was the case before, now also shows achievements and ambitions which undoubtedly present Novi Sad as a place on a regional artistic map that, most certainly, should not be omitted. The above mentioned book, not a bit deprived of ambition, having more than 260 pages, the abundance of illustrations in colour and having been translated into English, represents the remarkable review of Vojvodinian art production which becomes clearly visible with this project and moreover gains in significance. In comparison with others, such reviews are rare in far more developed cultures than ours. Therefore, “Tableau” gallery from Novi Sad, is certainly worthy of praise and support.

Nebojsa Milenkovic