Ж!

 

19.05.2022 - 18.06.2022

Conners Conners Gallery (exhibition website)

Fitzroy Town Hall, Melbourne AU

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Exhibition statement:

 

Ж! (pronounced zhe, as occasion) is the eighth letter in the Serbian alphabet, it is the initial letter of my first name in cyrillic, Жаклина, and it is a common abbreviation of the word živeli, used to cheer or celebrate.

 

Ж! comprises thirty works which together represent a visual azbuka (the children’s book for learning the letters of the alphabet). Informed by free association and an attitude reflective of the free wheeling and institution-defiant exhibitions of early conceptual Yugoslav art groups and artists, Ж! presents a culmination of works made between 2016 and 2022 that have been either created by hand, readymade and abstracted from my studio, or displayed from my personal collection.   

 

The premise of the exhibition derives from a tapestry woven in 2020, titled Azbuka rug, and is a natural extension of the themes embedded therein. With an interest in that which shifts and dissolves over time - the practice of weaving, folk traditions, geographical territories, language, symbols, and sociopolitical constructs - the visual azbuka demarcates my contemporary position within a diluted historical framework personal to me. Through my subjective associations, Ж! calls for celebration of what came before, accessed through the lens of abstraction and manifested in a museological display aligned with sharing histories.