exhibition - Vesna Pavlović: “Emotional Maps.”
On Tuesday, December 16 at 6 PM, in the Klara and Rosa space (Petefi Šandora 15), we will open the exhibition of photographer Vesna Pavlović titled “Emotional Maps.”.
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The exhibition consists of a network of photographic notes about a particular period and several moments within it. Her quiet yet powerful testimony of the winter of the 1990s in this region — of the situations, people, and days that shaped the community as it wandered through the wastelands of misguided decisions — offers an authentic perspective that continues to hold up a mirror to society even thirty years later.
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The decision to offer this powerful cycle of photographs to various individuals, inviting them to interpret and answer the question “What is this photograph about?” speaks clearly to her artistic approach: it always includes people, whether as protagonists or as observers activated by a particular scene. In her later work, Vesna Pavlović will continue to explore the vast theme of memory.
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Memory, as a category of documentary practice, remains one of the threads of her work, but the dominant role in understanding is entrusted to recollection — an active process that engages the one who remembers. In this sense, Emotional Maps relies on a dedicated viewer and offers a multitude of opportunities to confront questions that shape life and create art — the need for remembering, the search for a meaning beyond what is immediately visible. The work of Vesna Pavlović opens up the possibility of perceiving the past and present as a continuum in which experiences refract, overlap, and intertwine. In this layering lies the key to her artistic method — photography is not merely a document, but an invitation to reflection, introspection, and the re-examination of one’s own position in relation to what has been and what is yet to come.
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-Nela Tonković
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O autorki:
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Vesna Pavlović (Srbija/SAD) magistrirala je vizuelne umetnosti na Univerzitetu Kolumbija u Njujorku 2007. godine. Vanredna je profesorka umetnosti na Univerzitetu Vanderbilt u Nešvilu. Njeni projekti istražuju promenljive odnose između sećanja u savremenoj kulturi i tehnologija proizvodnje fotografije. Proširivanje fotografskog prikaza izvan njegovog okvira, tradicionalnog formata i narativa predstavlja centralnu strategiju njenog umetničkog izraza. Istražuje fotografske reprezentacije specifičnih političkih i kulturnih istorija, uključujući fotografske arhive i srodne artefakte.
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Pavlovićeva je izlagala na brojnim mestima, uključujući samostalne izložbe u Phillips Collection u Vašingtonu, Frist Center for the Visual Arts u Nešvilu, Muzeju istorije Jugoslavije u Beogradu i Crocker Art Museum u Sakramentu. Učestvovala je na velikom broju grupnih izložbi, među kojima su Untitled, 12. Istanbulski bijenale (2011), Turska; The MAC – Metropolitan Arts Center u Belfastu, Severna Irska; Württembergischen Kunstverein u Diseldorfu, Nemačka; KUMU Art Museum u Talinu, Estonija; Zachęta, Nacionalna galerija umetnosti u Varšavi, Poljska; Mestna galerija u Ljubljani, Slovenija; New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall, Velika Britanija; Bukureštanski bijenale 5, Bukurešt, Rumunija; Museum of Contemporary Photography u Čikagu, SAD; Le
Quartier Center for Contemporary Art u Kimperu, Francuska; NGBK u Berlinu, Nemačka; Photographers’ Gallery u Londonu i Kettle’s Yard u Kembridžu, Velika Britanija; kao i FRAC Center for Contemporary Art u Dankerku, Francuska.
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Tokom devedesetih godina, u Beogradu, Pavlovićeva je blisko sarađivala sa feminističkom pacifističkom grupom Žene u crnom. Dobitnica je Howard fondacije George A. and Eliza Gardner (2017), stipendije za rezidencijalni boravak koju dodeljuje Grad Kopenhagena (2011), kao i hitnih grantova Contemporary Foundation for the Arts (2011. i 2014). Dobila je i Art Matters Foundation grant 2012. godine. Nositeljka je Fulbrajt stipendije za 2018. godinu. Iste godine bila je i Southern Prize Fellow. Njeni radovi nalaze se u značajnim privatnim i javnim zbirkama, među kojima su Phillips Collection, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Museum of Women in the Arts u Vašingtonu, SAD, i Muzej savremene umetnosti u Beogradu, između ostalih. Publikacija o njenom radu pod naslovom Vesna Pavlović’s Lost Art: Photography, Display, and the Archive, urednice Morne O’Nil, objavljena je 2018. godine u izdanju Hanes Art Gallery pri Univerzitetu Wake Forest, SAD.
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The exhibition will remain on view in the Klara and Rosa space until March 1, 2026.
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The exhibition is a part of the Center for Cultural Decontamination’s project “Diversity As Resilience: Creative Pathways and Collective Foresights,” supported by the EU Delegation under the IPA III / EU Civil Society Instrument for the Republic of Serbia.
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