The Art of Holding Hands / as we break through the sedimentary cloud

Commissioner: Jelena Božović

Curator: Natalija Vujošević

Montenegro is pleased to present the exhibition The Art of Holding Hands ~ as we break through the sedimentary cloud ~ at the 59th International Venice Biennale.

The exhibition presents works by artists Dante Buu, Lidija Delić, Ivan Šuković, Darko Vučković and Jelena Tomašević, as well as works from the Art collection of Non-Aligned Countries, by Zuzana Chalupová, René Portocarrero, the unknown author from Iraq, and a documentary on the work of the artist Bernard Matemera. 

The exhibition The Art of Holding Hands / as we break through the sedimentary cloud resembles a sci-fi tale of possible futures, woven through multitemporal and intergenerational views of artists coming from various social and historical contexts, settling in present-day Montenegro.

This story originates in the margins of the “world,” which today we call global capitalism, from the space of acute dystopia of the disintegrated “body” of society, nation, nature, which changes under constant turbulence, influences and shock; it loses its solid membrane and like a scattered cloud of ideologies, histories, landscapes, fears and dreams, it floats in time and space. 

Embodying their visions through various media, from painting and installation to adopting ritual approaches to handicrafts in their practices, all the way to poetry and archives, the artists show us imagination, the healing potential of art that is conceived in, and despite, the post-social desert. 

Dante Buu's abstract embroideries tell the untold story about the love and resistance of the unwanted and unloved through intimacy and an autobiography intertwined with the lives of others. 

Not all of paradise is lost is an artistic dialogue between Lidija Delić’s paintings, and Ivan Šuković’s sculptural installation. It takes its name from the poetry of Andre Breton, guided by the surrealist principle of the juxtaposition of plays and the power of artistic imagination. 

Darko Vučković's Soft forms represent intensive and unmediated communication with nature through the long and experimental process of working with clay, combining ancient techniques and unconventional methods.

Jelena Tomašević's series of installations, Guilty Knowledge, emphasise humankind’s connection to technology. The intention of these installations is to encourage the observer to think about our transience in relation to the environment we produce, as well as the one in which we all live.

The Josip Broz Tito Gallery for the Art of the Non-Aligned Countries was inaugurated in 1984 in Titograd, Yugoslavia. In 1995 it ceased to function as an independent institution due to the change of the political and social context which brought the disintegration of the country, and its collection was incorporated into the Center of Contemporary Art of Montenegro.

The exhibition presents artworks from the collection by artists Zuzana Chalupová (Serbia), a renowned naive painter who depicted the optimistic vision of everyday life as seen in her painting Family;  René Portocarrero (Cuba), one of the key figures of the second generation of artists of Cuban Vanguardia and his beautiful Dove of Peace, Bernard Matemera (Zimbabwe), the prominent representative and one of the founders of the Shona sculpture art movement, whose exceptional outdoor stone sculpture Family will be presented through video documentary; and the unknown Iraqi artist with the work entitled Silver palm.

The experience of the exhibition envelops and weaves a whole record of experimental poetic text, it leads us with the help of audio guides, broadcast by encounters of artistic visions networked in the exhibition body.

The exhibition is accompanied by a book that will present intertwined curatorial and poetic approaches, as well as archival and oral historical records. Publication includes writings by: Ana Ivanović, Jovana Stokić, Miloš Zec, Nuno de Brito Rocha, Vjera Borozan, Marina Čelebić, Nada Baković, Anita Ćulafić, and Natalija Vujošević. 

The book is designed by Tara Langford.

Organisation: Contemporary Art Center of Montenegro

Supported by: Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of Montenegro

Press inquiries: danica.bogojevic@csucg.me