Marbles conversations: hula-hoops, elastics, marbles and sand dejan kaludjerović Gartengasse 9-11/4/16 1050 Vienna /AT Tel: +43.(0)699.12.09.22.87. info@dejankaludjerovic.net www.dejankaludjerovic.net
Marbles / detail of the installation
Marbles from the series: conversations: hula-hoops, elastics, marbles and sand The 7 channel sound installation Marbles (2014) is one of the site-specific installations from a series Conversations: Hula Hoops, Elastics, Marbles and Sand, produced in different parts of the world. Each installation from the sereis is made in relation to the local site and accompanied with a sound piece emitted from 7 speakers (each speaker for the voice of one child); the children are narrating/answering questions about political issues such as social exclusion and inclusion, about foreigners, language, war, money, poverty. This installation Marbles is produced with 30777 glass marbles, which are equal to the number of boys and girls born in the same years and the same towns in Serbia as the seven interviewed children. These are 7 to 9 year olds, school children with different ethnic, social and cultural backgrounds. In the post- production of the recorded material, the questions asked are omitted and only the children s answers are edited to create a narrative. Listening to the sound of the installation the spectator has the impression that he/she is listening to a conversation between these seven children. My intention is to reflect and question both the ideological, cultural and socio-political patterns that are imposed on children through the family, education and media as well as their reasoning about the given topics. At the end of the project the book about the project will be published including interviews with all the participants/kids from all the places and essays written by pedagogues, sociologists, art theoreticians, philosophers and artists reflecting on the project and its topics. Already planned productions: - Italian Version (Gallery Bianconi, Milan, Italy April - May 2015) 6 or 7 channel sound installation with plastic Lego cubes - Romanian Version (Artist Residency Transit Romania, Iasi, May- June 2015) 6 or 7 channel sound installation with elastics - Austrian Version (exhibition Crises as Ideology, Kunstraum NÖ, Vienna, 2016) 6 or 7 channel sound installation with 41 painted wooden sticks (mikado) - Iranian Version (exhibition Conversations - Dejan Kaludjerović, Sazmanab Contemporary Art Center, Teheran, Iran, July - August 2015) 6 or 7 channel sound installation with sand
ALEKSA, 8 years old, SERBIA frame from the video featuring English subtitles of the sound installation in Serbian langueage
Concept: The series of works Conversations: Hula-hoops, Elastics, Marbles and Sand uses children s narration as litmus paper to detect the way each society in question generates cultural differences, identifies the Other and different, and establishes the system of values based on it. By following the narration of children, we learn what does it mean to be member of local community or foreigner in each society, to be rich or poor, to speak different language, to be boy or girl. The children s answer point out at ideological, cultural and societal matrixes that were imposed on them in family, school or other educational institutions, through media, globally present society of consumption (of games, etc.) and the ways children relate to these issues. Through the world of school children between 6 and 10 years of age, in the period when they are not yet individualized, Kaludjerovic actually observes the world of adults and the models of construction of socially coded and normatively predetermined identities for the children. In the visual articulation of the sound installations, the accent is put on the tension in between the naivety of the children and the seriousness of the political context which is to be found in the background of each specific society where the work is being produced. At first glance visually seductive and colourful world of children s games unmasks and places at the central stage tensions and conflicts of the modern day global society. Although the number of children of 6 to 7 is not a representative sample for a proper sociological pole, their choice is based on the idea to represent different ethnic, religious, social or class groups in the society where the children are growing up, and their narration is very indicative for the problems of this particular country. The special accent is therefore made on the comparative analysis of the children s narrations in all of the countries where the work is produced. It is important to detect which are the terms that are qualitatively comprehended in the different way in each context. (I.E. in Russia all children new what terrorism means, and in Serbia and Azerbaijan they could barely pronounce the word).
7 channel sound installation + video projection of English subtitles + 30777 marbles, cardboards, 46 min, loop
BOJANA, 9 years old, SERBIA frame from the video/ featuring Ensglish subtitles of the sound installation in Serbian langueage
Marbles, installtion view
Here you can hear/ see the excerpt from the sound installation in Serbian with English subtitles: https://vimeo.com/95283492
Klikeri/ Marbles, 2014 installation view, exhibition Invisible Violence, MoCA, Belgrade
MARTIN, 9 years old, SERBIA
What is needed for the installation: - space / room minimum 460 x 460 cm and no bigger than 560 x 510 cm or similar, at lease 3 white walls. - depending on the space where the installation will be placed I would need to cover the floor with two layers of paper museum board or carboard equivalent; each layer should be 3mm thick - 31000 of glass marbles - Bluray Player - SAMSUNG Blu-ray Player BD- F7500-7 pairs of active speakers -Logitech Z200 SW white (each pair needs electricity) - cables and conectors to conect 7 analog audio outputs from Bluray to the speakers - HD video projector that has to be conected with Blu-Ray Player with HDMI BUDGET: - Bluray Player 7.1 analog sound outputs- SAMSUNG Blu-ray Player BD- F7500 * 250-7 pairs of regular active speakers -Logitech Z200 SW white * 210-31000 glass marbles * 200 - HD video projector that has to be conected with Blu-Ray Player with HDMI - to rent 200-4 nights accomodation in Budapest 200 - Return Ticket for the artist (Vienna - Budapest) 60 - per diems for 5 days 325 - contingencies 150 Total: 1595 *(posibility to borrow it from Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade)
Short CV Since the beginning of his career in Belgrade the mid 1990s, Dejan Kaludjerović has been exploring the conjunction between consumerism and childhood, to analyse identity formation and stability of representational forms. Most of his paintings, drawings, objects, videos and installations, employ the processes of recycling, copying and reenacting, thus creating patterns that simulate mechanical reproduction, and criticise homogeneity embedded in popular culture. For the achievements in visual arts, Kaludjerović has been granted honorable Austrian citizenship. He was studying in the class of Erwin Wurm at the Academy of Applied Arts, also in Vienna, and gained MA in visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade, in 2004. Kaludjerovic s work is part of many private and public collections, among others, MUSA, KONTAKT collection and collection of the Artothek des Bundes in Vienna and Salzburg Museum der Moderne, City Museum Belgrade, STRABAG collection, APT Berlin etc. He has exhibited internationally at numerous solo and group shows in Europe, USA, Australia and Asia: Kunstlerhaus Vienna, Santa Maria delle Croci Ravenna, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, 1st and 4th Beijing International Art Bienniale, CAC Vilnius, Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto, Italy, Tokyo Wondersite Institute of Contemporary Arts, Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam, Kunstpavillion Innsbruck, 28th International Biennial of Graphic Art, Ljubljana, Kunsthalle Krems, 43rd, 44th, 45th, 46th and 55th International October Salon Belgrade, Museum of Modern Art Saint-Etienne, 2nd Bucharest Biennial of Youndg Artists, Landesgalerie Linz am OÖ Landesmuseum, Linz, Prague Quadriennail and Manifesta 4 (archive project), Frankfurt, Germany. Winner of the 55th October Salon Award, Belgrade, 2014. Winner of Sazmanab Contemporary Art Center Residency, Teheran, Iran for 2015 and YARAT Residency, Baku, Azerbaijan for 2014. Winner of Atelier Tokyo for 2011 (Studio and traveling fellowship of 6 months provided by Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur). Winner of the CEC ARTSLINK scholarship for 2008, which included a residency at the Santa Monica 18th Street Art Center in the USA (program for art managers and artists from Eastern Europe). Winner of the Unidee residency in Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto, Italy in 2005, as well as a three-month Kultur Kontakt Austria residency in Vienna in 2002. He is living and working in Vienna and Belgrade. Artist statement My work is mainly concerned with issues of responsibility and manipulation. In other words, the ways through how mass media, educational systems or family contexts influence society; My work explores the centrality of the image in the Western society, the obsession of the society with fear and violence and the structure and mechanisms of capitalism. Also how capitalistic system is using and manipulating with the images of children, violence and sexuality in the media. My work deals with the questioning of how society perceives children in different periods and how this is connected with the ideologies of society. I am interested in the problem of the exploit of children and the image of a child for commercial purposes.