October 27th – November 27th 2007
Vernissage: Saturday, October 27th 2007, 7 pm.
Galleria Paola Verrengia is proud to announce “Backup Stories”, the first Italian solo exhibition by the Serbian artist Mrdjan Bajić.
MrdjanBajić presents at the Italian gallery a series of photographs, drawings and small sculptures produced from 1980 to 2007: pieces of the artist’s personal memories and history of his country in an intriguing back-up of stories. The artistic process developed by Bajić, the only protagonist of the Serbia Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennial, challenges the cognitive methods we use to organize the past, above all the most recent one and seemingly far from the places where real events happen. In this way new visual and mental strategies are offered which direct the preservation of memories.
Featuring in the exhibition, the project Yugomusej (a virtual museum of the history of Yugoslavia, www.yugomusej.com), which comprises a series of digital photo-collages of historical and political events developed by the artist during the NATO bombing in Serbia. Photographs, drawings and sculptures from the reset_ series which are thought as a ‘social grammar’ to what Bajić creates as a private or group back-up story.
Catalogue with text by Antonio d’Avossa.
Mrdjan Bajić (Belgrade, 1957) lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia. Since 1997 he has been a professor of sculpture at the Fine Arts school of Belgrade. The lastest exhibitions by the artist are: 52nd Venice Biennial (2007), Mediterraneo contemporaneo – diciannove artisti tra identità e differenze, Castello Aragonese, Taranto, Italy (2006-2007), Protection of Nature, XII Pančevo Biennial, Serbia (2006), Mobile studios, Public art Lab Berlin, Belgrade, Serbia (2006).
