Mc Lada is a title of the project that I made for an exhibition in
the Belgrade gallery named “Happy Gallery”. I was invited
to collaborate in an exhibition cycle entitled Contemporary Art scene
of Slovenia. The whole exhibition was organised by the curator Miki
Pjescic.
I prepared some work for the exhibition, which had a specific of being
set up just for one day. That specific gave the exhibition a touch in
a sense of a happening. That fact was important for my decision to make
some action and not a classical piece of art.
Ironically I wanted to blow up an ego of an artist, in that case my
own ego, because now a day’s artists spend the majority of their
time on promotion and self-advertising. The density of the art population
have forced artists to develop their own recognisable style, if they
want to be noticed in the crowd of art works. So the result is often
just self-propaganda.
This resulted in 100 balloons printed with my portrait indicating an
overblown ego, like Mc Donalds promotions balloons, which the visitor
could take and home from the gallery. So that evening people were walking
around with my portrait printed on the balloons. Slowly my work disappeared
and at the end the gallery was empty, my work was moved to visitors’
homes and they now own a piece of my sculpture.
The exhibition went on in couples. Metka
Zupanic and I decided (she represented her work with video
performances) to make one more piece together, that would make our separated
works more connected and actively involve the visitor in a happening.
The visitors became a part of the live installation, which had associations
with Manet’s Breakfast on the grass.
We wanted to stress the point of hedonism. We tried to stimulate communication
and create a two-way relationship with the visitors, as this is very
important part of any artistic act for both of us.
