Ivan Jeremić

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December 6th – 17th

Ivan Jeremić’s exhibition entitled ‘Negative’ forms a part of his project entitled ‘Man in the Era of Transhumanism and New Media’ within the scope of his PhD artistic studies, and offers a theoretically founded, critical and subversive approach in negotiating ‘negative space’ and the the consequences of current technical and technological developments. ‘Negative space in relation to man’, in a wider interpretation of the analysis, implies all departures from the postulates of humanism and includes current tendencies, utopian and radical visions of Transhumanism.

Facing the current human condition, through his works, Ivan Jeremić deliberately emphasizes the insight into the void produced between man’s aspiration toward progress (a technically enabled omnipresence) and his alienation. He poses the problem of the immanence of transhumanistic premises for a positive development of man and his potentials, by introspectively revealing traces of these processes. The artist’s views are based on personal rebellion, inquiry and the defense of humanism, taking the form of resistance against repression, which he identifies in conditions of contemporary life.

The artist sees the strength of his critique in the confrontation between the public and works of art, that plays the role of witness to the artist’s inner turmoil. The author strives to raise awarenes and the ‘gaze’ of the viewer to the ever important issues of human freedoms, diversity, the nature of man’s choices and achievements. The works of Ivan Jeremić investigate psychological, associative ‘transferals’ of influences, ‘touch upon’ potentials of translatability and interpretative limits of or towards digital space, as well as the alterations of consciousness and the conscience of man under the influence of ‘hypermedia’.

The artist’s choice is in front of us; it is as firm and indisputable as the material used to create these works, and thus also sufficiently subversive in the contemporary artistic and social contexts. He realizes his path toward the artistic expression by using reverse motion in contact with stone that he shapes as if by the living energy of a water course. He flows into and extracts from stone, reducing all endless observations and flows to a hieroglyph. The presentation of these works is conceived from individual entities, able to create various assemblies through grouping, depending on how they are positioned in space itself.

Ivan Jeremić creates highly suggestive works, somewhat reminiscent of something that we could call modern ‘krajputaši or stećci’, the ancient roadside grave monuments found throughout Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. They speak of man who has found himself outside his own habitat which is also the determinant of his vital force. They are today’s ‘monuments to man, standing at a crossroads, a warning’, or roadside sign, a reminder of a potential time when a healthy symbiosis between man and his own nature and principals may cease to exist. The works of Ivan Jeremić are stylized representations of influences, through human and artistic activity in an age before and during something that is emphasized as a transition from a biological to a cybernetic organism; and a full and therefore uncritical immersion into illusions of cyberspace.

Text: Jelena Marković
Photo: Vladimir Opsenica