Prima Center Berlin

DON’T STARE SO ROMANTICALLY

Author:
Filip Jovanovski

Curator:
Mira Gakina

DON’T STARE SO ROMANTICALLY!

The exhibition is a spatial replica/reproduction of Delacroix’s Liberty leading the people referring to the definition of the ideal of freedom anew.
On the one hand the idea to a produce a replica of this historic piece of art is an attempt to set and re-contextualize the meaning of art-making once again. On the other hand, it emphasizes the local qualities and the authentic aesthetics (we also have history of arts of our own, we also have freedom of our own). In other words, holograms should be made in Japan, while iron should be welded in Macedonia.
This is not to be said ironically, on the contrary, it is to be said in terms of creating one’s own identity so that there is no pure idea, the idea has to emerge out of the material possibilities and the quality of the context.
The question of experiencing and presenting the artistic form in certain context arises: how to discover the meanings of the existing context once again, but also to rediscover the context that has to be redefined as well?

The exposition creates new context referring to Brecht’s ideal of freedom (Don’t stare so romantically! Drums in the night) to the ideal of freedom in the history of art i.e. Delacroix’ s Liberty leading the people and the ideal of freedom in the social context which is the audio quote of Robespierre’s Danton’s death in Stevo Zigon’s speech in front of the students in Belgrade. 1968.


The project is a fragment/memory of experiencing the ideal of the freedom anew, in the current context. It deals with replaying history once again, imitating and referring to the symbol of revolution with our primitive devices thus bringing to one’s senses the urge and the possibility for such freedom to be experienced, to liberate ourselves in terms of form and content from the meaning of the context and to create our own tools in construction of the personal identity. Freedom is as it is, not the way we think it is!

Don’t stare so romantically!