Collection as a Constellation
Contemporary Art Center of Montenegro, 7 June – 31 July 2022
Curators: Bojana Piškur (Moderna galerija) & Marina Šaranović, Anita Ćulafić, Nada Baković & Natalija Vujošević (Non-Aligned Art Collection Laboratory), organized by the Contemporary Art Center of Montenegro in Podgorica in collaboration with Moderna galerija, Ljubljana.
Participating artists: Hambis Tzangaris, Shukrija, Mamdouh Kachlan, Guido Chire Balderrama, Agnes Clara Ovando Sanz de Franck, Dan Acostioaei, Nika Autor & Newsreel Front, Gazbia Sirry, Naima El Shishiny, Liliane Karnouk, Rabab Nemr, Rafikun Nabi, Cho Geumsoo, Đorđe Balmazović, Teja Merhar.
Contemporary Art Center of Montenegro, 7 June – 31 July 2022
This exhibition was the first in a series of international exhibitions and educational programs realized by the Non-Aligned Art Collection Laboratory, a project of the Contemporary Art Center of Montenegro.
The exhibition and the research explored the idea of establishing a gallery of art of the non-aligned countries named after Josip Broz Tito, and the position of Titograd in the late 1980s as an important place of exchange of cultural programs between Yugoslavia and non-aligned countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
In their works, the contemporary artists presented at the exhibition reflect on what we can learn from the ideas of the Non-Aligned Movement in this day and age of accelerated neoliberal globalization that is creating radical inequalities, new colonial policies as well as economically and politically dependent peripheries.
In addition to that, the exhibition has raised several questions, such as: What to do with the cultural heritage of the Non-Aligned Movement – with the archives, the artworks, the collections? How to activate the neuroplasticity of the repressed and forgotten experience that is the legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement, and how to activate its potential for creating new connections and constellations on the example of the unique collection of art from non-aligned countries that is kept at the Contemporary Art Center of Montenegro?
