In the Wax Room, Spilled Milk Will Be Yellow

It moves while standing still, and stands still while moving.
– Ljubica Marić

Probably you are standing at the very entrance of the gallery, having just embraced the vision of this [n]ew exhibition. It might be a good idea to step slightly to the right so as not to block the way… Before you continue reading, take a walk through the space. Imagination becomes just a kind of artificial extension of reality that can lead to understanding between interlocutors, Bourriaud would say; art reduces automatism within us, nullifying every a priori response to what we perceive.[1] So, take a walk.

[…]

You’ve seen the grass, smelled the honey, perhaps even touched the plexiglass… did you hear the sound? But all of that is shaped and presented to you as a series of fragmented experiences through which the artist, playing with life as both medium and form of artistic expression, reveals its [in]visible aesthetic potentials and symbolic effects – which you are, frequently, unaware of (what does a bee >mean< to you, how do you per:ceive wheat or honey?). By the end of the exhibition, something will certainly have shifted, and what you are now witnessing is a frame : still from nature in unstoppable entropy (read: transformation) – taking place here, in vitro, under laboratory-like conditions of the gallery space. A broken “scenography” of reality, reassembled through a synthetic architectonics of the senses. You are thinking (walking slowly – and silently).

[…]

If we are to trust Boris Groys, an art installation constitutes an ‘exceptional space’ – it extracts a specific site from the topology of the >ordinary< world to reveal its inner nature and limitations.[2] The central topos – life [of bees] – is mediated through those concepts, things, and affects that surround it both ideationally and aesthetically, gravitate toward it or, so to speak, condense around it through artworks at the intersection of natural [and] human intervention; microscopic studies of the everyday, grass in white frames, digitally-woollen scenes or textures – these are just some of the elements the artist offers, promising a new view of…things? It seems the clichés of nature have grown distant to us through the perpetual repetition of their microforms and organic randomness. The best answer to the question of why the atom is so small is because we are so big.

[…]

By now, I believe you’ve grasped the basic premises of Zorana’s poetics. Still, let’s continue… reading. One mustn’t be naive and assume that nature is an artist per se, and not because its works lack appeal, or because there was no conscious intent to produce a particular event-entity; rather, the point is that the artist, in the current moment – one shaped not only by innate perceptual preferences but also by a multitude of cultural codes through which we interpret [sensory] reality – aesthetically mediates the effects of nature, making them visible and giving them form, often through participatory-relational formats.

[…]

Following that line, Zorana cre:ates works through which nature >speaks<, testifying to its coexistence with humans, technology, and other [non]living beings (look!: the use of biomaterials). I see you’re still with me. Take note of this too: the frame borders the greenery, the lightbox is not an advertisement, and the video and garment are documents… of a larger narrative. If you ask me, I’d call it – transmedialization. You keep walking, not pausing… Then you touch (you.laugh).

[…]

Sampling reality – that is, indexing the present – is followed by ‘catalysis’ or a process of [internal] transformation of the individual in contact with bioart; the final stage of this strategy, as proposed by Adrian Piper and inscribed into Zorana’s practice, is “confrontation” – a reexamination of paradigms through the formation of new, divergent paths of thinking about the nature and our relationship to it.[3] This is precisely what is manifest in her insistence on sensitivity, contact, fragile receptiveness and detail, which – ultimately – results in different shades of yellow as the furthest association with bees and their labour. Reduction through abstraction : you conclude.

[…]

In the wax room, spilled milk will be yellow. Now you know. Still, there are a few more things you might ponder, now that we’re on…a [first-]name basis. For instance, how artworks art:iculate corporeality in space. Or about how long it’s been since you last touched grass, inhaled honey, felt wool and golden foil…close to your body. Simply put, you haven’t quite looked at things this way. One thing’s certain – you’ll stay a little longer. Silent. Leaving, in yellow. Ciao!

Marko Vesić, in July 2025
Belgrade, U10 Art Space

[1]Burio, N. (2020). Relaciona estetika/Postprodukcija/Altermodernost. Beograd: FMK izdavaštvo, 90

[2]Grojs, B. (2020). U toku. Beograd: Službeni glasnik, 93

[3]Prinčipe, R. D. (2013). Adrijan Pajper. U D. Kostelo, Dž. Vikeri (Ur.), Umetnost – ključni savremeni mislioci (52-56). Beograd, Službeni glasnik, 54