[spectre] Macedonian Pavilion

[misko]

media release
May 2003

MACEDONIAN PAVILION
San Marco 2774
Campo Santo Stefano

to present

"INTEGRALISM" by Zaneta Vangeli        "PASSAGE" by Vana
Urosevik
curator Zlatko Teodosievski				  curator Emil Aleksiev


вINTEGRALISMг, detail, 2002/2003,
Installation made of:  3 objects: wood, acrylic, gold, 3 relief maps
of Macedonia, each 82x105x73cm; object:  wood, plotter print, gold,
glass, 240x120x73cm;  2 vitrinas each 300x265x25cm;
ready-made destroyed weapons;  "Realkunst, or Essential
Harvest", video, endless tape, video recorder, monitor; 2 glass
objects, each 100x200x0,8cm, steel)

Integralists of all Nations, Unite!

This paraphrase of Leninеs rallying cry from the early twentieth
century and the October Revolution can appropriately be used for
events taking place a century later. Workers and proletarians
united then; integralists and globalists are uniting today! Marxеs
capital marches on in new clothes!
Zaneta Vangeliеs interest in global events and their wide-ranging
impact dates back several years. In 2001 she started developing
more fully these interests through a project entitled Integralism,
consisting of a series of works. Prepared for the Venice Biennale,
the project is preoccupied with what is perhaps the most rigid and
extreme form of the shady mechanisms of integration processes:
militarization. Vangeli ironically takes for granted а as an
international super-process а the operationalized equation
militarization = integration = globalization, as she does its
вproductsг which involve/affect all dimensions of existence.
To be more specific, Vangeliеs triptych Integralism aims to
discover the relationships governing collective and individual
integration (or pseudo-integration), вminorг and вmajorг wars and
their ambivalent meanings, the by-products of these processes as
a ready-made show and the inevitable changes at the level of
personal identity.

Zlatko Teodosievski


Passage: Six female characters help Casanova in his escape
from the prison, 2003, detail; Installation made of: 6 silk garments,
6 photos, ready-made furniture, texts, sound, curtains)

Vana Urosevik makes her works of the sticky matter of the dreams.
Night, moon, silver, black masks, lace, red silk, heavy drapes, old
furniture and mirrors, are the stuff of which she makes a home for
the specters. You can meet them here, but they are not very
sociable and it is really difficult to invoke them from the darkness
where they lurk in concealment. That's why Vana Urosevik uses
the thin cobweb threads of imagination to weave a magic fabric
and to make clothes like traps for the specters. The clothes invoke
them (the clothes look for the body that is gone) and they crawl in it
like into an empty snake skin. Lemurs (larvae), chimeras and
harpies now settle the house. With her legs spread the Ancient
slut Lilith lies on the table, she who strangles the sleeping ones
and attacks the lost. The sorceress Melusina, who flied from the
high tower of her castle like a flying snake, releasing sad shrieks,
now comes out of the closet. The Prophetess seats on the
armchair, while many eyes look at you from under her dress. The
Virgin of the crystal lake, with loose hair, now for ever sinks into the
coffin filled with water, that was unexpectedly placed in the middle
of the room. The woman-wolf waits for you stretched on the sofa...
Someone's shadow on the wall shows you the way from one room
to the other. You are invited to participate in the game of shadows
and specters. The inscription on one of the heavy red drapes,
written in gold, reads: Six female characters help Casanova in his
escape from the prison Piombi. The other drape says: Passage...
You can choose your character by choosing one of the clothes.
You can try to escape following the shadow of Casanova. You have
at your disposal women's socks tied one to another with knots, an
awl, squid ink, a binocular... Yet, the escape from here is
impossible. No matter how many drapes have you left behind,
when the last one raises, it always says, like at the beginning:
Welcome to the Magic Theater of Vana Urosevic.

Emil Aleksiev