Lidija Delić and Nemanja Lađić

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April 15th – 28th

Soap Bubbles

The first impression given out by Lidija Delić’s series of paintings on aluminium can be seen as entering the field of abstraction. However, the choice of colour and surface, together with the structure of the painting and setting lead us to pursue their meaning elsewhere. The artist invites us to dive into the painting, seduces us with pieces of hidden celestial landscapes, while confronting us with an almost chemically artificial purple colour that gently transforms into a pastel tone. In certain parts of the painting, the cold aluminium silver resurfaces as a sort of a mirror that ridicules us. The artist titles the work Soap Bubbles with a hint of humour as to suggest the direct source of inspiration. Positioned on tables, so that the surface is able to reflect the changes of the light in the room, the paintings pull us into an observation game of light reflection, colour and the search for a form that escapes us.

On the other hand, Nemanja Lađić in the work Sightseeing starts from a completely different analytical position. By investigating the field of perception, he structurally deconstructs images, ‘destroys’ them to segments and frames, and subsequently rebuilds them by accumulating parts of the image; or to put it more precisely, the accumulation of a large number of images which comprise three, never completely perceptible landscapes.
The visual field of the observer is occupied by creation and disintegration, melting, duplicating, annihilating and piling frames and sequences that form recognizable but unstable images. An integral part of this perfectly technically executed piece is also found in the dynamic of the flow of the image, accumulation time and duration of the sequence. Lađić titles the exhibition One second per second and authoritatively introduces the notion of time into the interpretation of the exhibition as a whole. What does One second per second exactly imply? The artist explains it as the overlapping of objective and subjective time. It is the juxtaposition of the subjective and objective, real and surreal that Lađić further elaborates in the work Park.
The tranquil, documentary character of a scene in a park, including an occasional passer-by is overlaid with a continual flow of soap bubbles in the middle of the scene. With a steady rhythm and shorter breaks, the bubbles move one by one along a horizontal axis, right to left. In perfect harmony with the surrounding, the bubbles generate subtle transformations of the image they move along. This seemingly simple intervention produces the effect of a certain kind of metaphysical landscape that hypnotizes us.

What is the key in reading, seeing or if you insist, understanding the works presented at the exhibition? Either by immersing ourselves into the association game in the painted surfaces of Lidija Delić’s Soap Bubbles or surrendering to the hypnotizing effect of Nemanja Lađić’s Park, or even vengefully gazing into the constantly transforming landscape in the work Sightseeing, we are exposed to at times, subtle and at other, intense visual stimuli which destabilize the definition of ‘real’. The perception of the observer rocks on the boundary between the subjective and objective, a second within a second and three within one. Exactly this door opened by the authors of this exhibition, the suggestion of the surreal as a topic, a multitude of interpretations and impressions, all the time while pointing out to an extremely interesting appearance on the scene, whose further development should be closely watched.

Text: Milica Pekić
Translation: Isidora Krstić
Photo: Boris Burić, Dunja Trutin and Nemanja Lađić