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"From the family" by Ljubomir Miloseski and
Irena Paskali "At this bottom" in Tetovo
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On 10.05. 2004. in Tetovo we held the
exhibitions "From the family" by Ljubomir Miloseski and Irena
Paskali "At this bottom". The ehxibition is part of the project
"Confluent Margins" of the NGO "Kontrapunkt".
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Ljubomir
Miloseski
Born 1974 in Struga,
Republic of Macedonia. 1999 graduated at the Faculty of Fine Arts in
Skopje, pedagogic department - painting, in the class of prof. Rubens
Korubin. M.A. degree 2002 at the same Faculty, painting department, in
the class of prof. Rodoljub Anastasov.
Solo
exhibitions:
1999
Skopje, Museum of City of Skopje
2003 Skopje, Art Gallery "Cifte Hamam"
Struga, Cultural
Centre "Braka Miladinovci"
Participated on many exhibitions in Macedonia and abroad.
from Maja Cankulovska's review:
"From the Family" (2003) is a continuation and extension of the project
"Mutations" (2002). In these two projects, Miloseski (re)examines
humanity through the relation human being/animal, i.e. alive/dead. In
the first case, he makes a forceful life-size figure of a bull, and
later on produces life-size "people"; because, according to the
author, the pain cannot be felt when it occurs to someone else. In
both cases the material he uses is cheap and natural - pigskin; as a
material of specific energy, "attraction" (a particular odor, tactile
qualities) and of symbolic impurity. There's no blood as an expression
of brutality; rather, it is expressed by the material that has
retained its "living" characteristics.
The confrontation, as well as the overall functioning of the project's
artistic elements, stems from the figural representations themselves:
even though they're arranged as an installation, they function as
independent sculptures. The author maintains a relation towards pure
artistic elements: three-dimensionality, immobility, drawing (the
wounds, stitches on the hide), color (taking into account the
material's natural color), light/shadow, concealed eroticism - as a
reminder of modernity. The use of live or dead animals (including
animal materials and odors) as objects, subjects or symbols in the
making of artworks is not unfamiliar to art history (Joseph Beuys,
Damien Hirst, Oppenheim etc); but Ljubomir Miloseski brings an unusual
"impudence" to it by creating "the perfect creature", the human being.
The title of the project "From the Family" refers to linking life and
art and the artist's engagement; the artist is no longer isolated from
the events around him, in this case humanity's global problems -
killing and cloning, the alienation and cruelty of the dominant human.
The engagement, i.e. the criticizing of "humaneness" is also
experienced through the interaction with the audience, that is by
facing the author's artistic position.
Irena Paskali's project "At this bottom" is short
documentary story about the way on which the representatives of the
two biggest religions - Christians and Muslims - live together. That
is a story about absurdity of mutual (in)tolerance and
(un)acceptability of two religions that are geographically determinate
and sentenced on together existence on a turbulent small region, place
for living that the author describes as "at this bottom".
The eternal conflict of culturological differences is shown on the
video, but, most of all, the accent is put on the absurdity of
similarities, which, for biggest optimists can signify moments of
approaching. Similarities are shown trough documentary recordings of
events in (and around) 2001: similarities in rituals, in celebration
of big religious celebrations, in the desire for believing, but also
similarities in mutual destruction and suffering.
In the case of "At this bottom", the story marks the actual social
changes and its influence on the subjects of this society. Accidental
participants are chosen to demonstrate the dark atmosphere, and
Paskali puts her self in the role of the narrator present in all
segments of the video. These "performing elements", in which the
author is a central figure, are presented in almost all of Paskali's
videos (which is rarity in Macedonian art); but the author is not a
critic or a judge; trough her presence she (un)intentionally points on
and elaborates psychological and sociological problems of "minor"
people. |
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