The crown jewel of the European Capital of Culture, the Other? Europe programme arch will bring to citizens of Novi Sad an insight into the world of socially engaged artists, conceptualists, and avant-gardists who dared and knew how to look broadly and differently.
The multimedia exhibition ‘Milky way’ will be opened on 25 November at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, CCNS Art Salon, as well as in the District, at Biro building, and will show the influences and reflections of the widely known Novi Sad neo-avant-garde movement, which placed Novi Sad onto the European art trend map. The exhibition brings the works of over 50 contemporary artists, and art collectives from the country and the world, such as Bill Viola, one of the leading contemporary artists who exhibited at the MoMA, Tate and Whitney Museums, as well as work Irritation – There is a Criminal Touch to Art of a conceptual German artist, one of the pioneers of performance art, body art and Polaroid photography, Ulay, which will be shown in cooperation with the ‘Ulay’ Foundation from Ljubljana, with the exhibition curated by Sanja Kojić Mladenov. ‘Milky way’ also includes film screenings, a conversation with the screenwriter of the Slovenian documentary film Project Cancer, Tevž Logar, who brings the story of Ulay and his memories of a life dedicated to art, as well as the audio-visual performance SIRENS by NOVI_SAD, by the Japanese artist Ryoichi Kurokawa, winner of one of the most prestigious annual awards in the field of electronics and interactive art, the Prix Ars Electronica.
During the very finale of Other? Europe, the audience will listen to punk, as an indispensable part of Novi Sad’s subcultural musical heritage, but in a different cultural and literary meaning – as cyberpunk, whose best representative is the controversial artist from Brazil, Edgar. He will perform at Fabrika in the District on the 27 November. With his engaged texts and modern expression, he sends a strong message for the end – only through constructive criticism and reflection, cultural exchange and changing perspectives can we be a better and fairer society, a society for everyone!
The Merlinka festival’s main mission is strong support for the LGBT+ community, de-tabooing it, as well as improving the community’s position in society, primarily in terms of increasing media and social visibility. It is a festival of LGBT films and culture, which will be held in Novi Sad from 22 to 24 November. This time, the audience will get the chance to watch the plays Fear of the Butterfly and Femkanje at the Novi Sad Theatre, and a literary evening Serbian Queer Literature will be organised at the Liman Cultural Station.
The central event of the festival is the Queer Europe exhibition, which will be opened in the Novi Sad District’s Skladište. The exhibition will include the works of 28 artists from 13 European countries depicting the LGBT+ community and its existence in Europe, as well as photographs that illustrate the reality that this community faces.
Novi Sad, as the European centre of literature, will once again host writers from the country and the region, so the audience will have the opportunity to participate in conversations with poets who are part of the contemporary literary scene as part of the ‘Joint Reading’, with the participants coming from Ireland, Italy, Austria and Serbia. Moreover, as part of the Disagreement project, poets will oppose their views on literature and show how this type of art is a field open to debate, agreement and disagreement, dynamism and creativity. During the finale of Other? Europe, on 26 November, the bold experimental documentary LaBOLatory 23, directed by Aleksandra Jelić, will premiere in the District. In the film, created as part of the Mission Avatar project, the causes and deep consequences of gender-based violence were illuminated through a long-term dramatic process with girls from the Institute for the Education of Children and Youth Belgrade who were given disciplinary measures, and young actresses.
The phenomenon of the body in various attractive and provocative multimedia art forms will be studied by artists from Europe, Japan and Serbia, and they will present their conclusions at the Art Body Art exhibition, which will be opened in Fabrika in the District. The Alternative in the Shop Window exhibition will show how the alternative-oriented citizens of Novi Sad looked and dressed in the 20th century, but also how the alternative and avant-garde of Novi Sad manifested itself in all areas of artistic and cultural creativity, at the French Institute, in District. The exhibition will be accompanied by a discussion on the topic Way of dressing as an expression of belonging to the subcultural movement / Novi Sad, the second half of the 20th century. The last week of the Other? Europe, the play Intimacy by the Family of Clear Streams will be performed, directed by Božidar Mandić. Also, the film Oništiti se will be shown, which Mandić will discuss with the audience.
The Other? Europe programme arch presents the grand finale of the European Capital of Culture, and from 7 October to 27 November, with numerous programmes, it raises issues of dominant values in European culture and art and leads to the discovery of different, alternative, marginalised, minority and rebellious expressions.
Photo: Milica Rakić, Bil Viola, Luiz Garrido, Mary Crnkovic Pilas, Jelić Aleksandra, Promo
