For Tina Gverović and Siniša Ilić research for this exhibition began with the renowned Yugoslav Pavilion at the international exhibition EXPO 58 in Brussels in 1958 by the architect Vjenceslav Richter. The spatial organisation the Pavilion, which involved numerous collaborators, included the topics of state and social organisation, contemporary art, economy, and tourism. The artists are particularly interested in how Richter employed specific design strategies in order to represent societal structures of the time. The pavilion was broken into distinct but overlapping topics or areas, with key characteristics of the design being dedicated to transparency, cross-pollination, and trans-disciplinarity. With this in mind, Tina and Siniša began to think about how today’s society might be presented within a contemporary pavilion, and about the primary topics that should be addressed within such a pavilion.
The exhibition Pressure Points looks at archive material of Richter’s Pavilion which records his approach to presenting socio-political topics of the day through spatial design. The collaborative exhibition takes that material, in particular Richter’s methodology for representing societal conditions as a starting point for examining contemporary issues of our own time such as cultural heritage, changes in the environment and landscape, and the complex social conditions required for survival and sustainability.
We bear witness to environmental, geological and social changes, we are surrounded by political crises and wars. The question is how a pavilion – as a form of social workshop – can organise and unify these very topics within the concept of collective work and the distribution of responsibility.
The works created during this research touch on issues of production and recycling, and the use of alternative and adaptable materials. In organising the circulation of people through the works within Richter’s Pavilion for EXPO 58 thematic units were interconnected in a fluid manner, and this approach is revisited here.
The topics are considered through the prism of fragility of body and existence, mutual support and mobility. The methods are unstable and fragile, they imply erasure, pressure, declines, but simultaneously speak of resistance and strength.
The result of this research and an expanded version of the exhibition will be published in an online publication designed by Ben Cain.
The exhibition and the publication are realised as part of the project Adrinetbook, with support by the City of Zagreb and the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia.
Curated by Jasna Jakšić
Tina Gverović (1975, Zagreb) and Siniša Ilić (1977, Belgrade) have realised several joint projects, including Collages from the Highway as part of the project My Sweet Little Lamb (Everything We See Could Also Be Otherwise) by the curatorial collective WHW and Kathrin Rhomberg in Zagreb (2017); Inverted House at Tate Modern, (curated by Una Popović and Hannah Dewar) as part of the collaborative project between Tate Modern from London and the Museum of Contemporary Art from Belgrade, which included exhibitions and residential research visits at both institutions (2013); Turnovers (curated by Una Popović) at the MSUB Salon (2014); Precarious Adaptations (with curator Jelena Vesić) at the Cultural Centre of Belgrade (2011); the biennale No Network (curated by Branislav Dimitrijević) in Konjic (2011.); Reconstruction, Magacin in Kraljevića Marka (2007), Belgrade.
Tina Gverović works with installation, drawing, painting, sound, text, and video. Her work – often in the form of immersive, disorientating installations – explores the economy and history of materials. One of the key questions in her work is where lies the potential of the political vision and re-invention. She finished MA at Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, and holds a doctorate from Middlesex University in London. Her work was recently shown as part of the Folkestone Triennial, 57th Venice Biennial, Corner DC, WKV Stuttgart, Museum of Arts and Crafts Hamburg, Trigon – Post Environment in Künstlerhaus – Halle für Kunst & Medien Graz, Suzhou Documents Biennial, Tate Modern, and Busan Biennial. Her public art commission, conceived in collaboration with Ben Cain, was recently installed at the University of Reading Campus. She held teaching posts at Camberwell College of Arts, Slade School of Arts, Dutch Art Institute Roaming Academy, and WHW Academy in Zagreb.
Siniša Ilić is a visual artist who is engaged through different media in social phaenomena and mechanisms by researching forms of work, tensions in society, violence, and unstable situations. He cofounded TkH – Walking Theory (2001 – 2017), an art-theoretical platform from Belgrade. He has exhibited his works at the Museum of Modern Art, Cultural Centre, and October Salon in Belgrade; at Nova and VN galleries in Zagreb; at Centre Pompidou and Kadist Foundation in Paris; at Tate Modern and Calvert 22 in London; at the Industrial Biennale in Rijeka, Ural Industrial Biennial in Ekaterinburg, MAXXI Museum in Rome; at WUK and Open Space galleries in Vienna, Modern Gallery in Ljubljana, Lofoten Festival. He studies the forms of collective and research work and is engaged in the design of stage and performance space. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. He was co-curator (with Bojan Đorđev and Maja Mirković) of the Serbian exhibition Scene Work Ahead at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in 2019.
