“A TERRITORY” – Jovana Popić
Since 2003, Jovana Popic has produced an array of works in various media that relate to a former civil war area (1991-1995) in the Croatian hinterland of Dalmatia. For Popic, the particularity gives the place a certain symbolic and offers itself as a unique, archetypal, specific territory that provides a foundation for her investigation in universal phenomena such as identity in connection to a place, the production of knowledge, decomposition of language, the void of human presence and the decay of space.
As a result of the devastation and migration of the former inhabitants, this scarcely populated region has since that time lost its former purpose, which was mostly related to agriculture, industry, housing and now serves as a nature reserve, a sort of no-man’s-land without a broader function. Yet the environment that remains is the only witness of the cultures that had once co-existed here. The works of Jovana Popic developed out of the need to make relations and history in this place visible again. With the aim of starting a dialogue about this historically and politically complex area, she hopes to learn and better understand it in order to rebuild elements of this destroyed place. Jovana Popic’s artistic investigation and profound relationship to this place has shifted it towards the invisible, to an intellectually and emotionally volatile territory. Popic argues that it is important for an artist to be the observer and the active participant in such places as they deepen the insights into human nature and human relations.
Jovana Popic’s video installation “A Territory” induces a question: Is art capable of repairing one’s connection with a place demolished by the society?
*1977 in Zadar, Croatia mail@jovanapopic.com
Lives and works in Berlin
“Jovana Popic´s art is based on a modus operandi that occupies different positions in different moments … Her installations are heterotopias – that is to say, they are based on a navigation across a universe of signs and meanings, and inhabiting the spaces in between, rather than occupying any single place.” Maja Ciric, curator and art historian
“The works of multimedia artist, Jovana Popić, are about the manifestation of identity and the innumerable fragments of information that contribute to it. They’re about traces—traces of place, of memory, of ideas and of time, traces of a culturally shaped life story that together comprise something of recognition, meaning, and value.
Her intent is to make the energy of a place visible. Popić describes her works as heterotopias, akin to those that Michel Foucault sees as “real places, places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society – which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia…places outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality.”
Engaging the medium that best serves her project ideas, Popić makes drawings on phosphorescent polyester resin, reliefs, large scale sculptures, video and sound installations. Perhaps most impressive about her work is the paradoxical pairing of ephemeral objects with a palpably material quality of space. In 2012 she translated her artistic work into a performative installation for six voices, presented at the Choregie Festival in Maribor. This operatic and trance-like production employed film, theater, and a rich vocal arrangement to foster a unique and haunting experience of identity for its viewers”. Nicole Loeser, curator
Jovana Popić (*1977, CRO-RS) began her formal art studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade under the Serbian State Scholarship for Science and Art Talents. In 2006, she she received the Friedrich Naumann Foundation Scholarship and later the President’s Prize toward her master’s degree under Rebecca Horn at the Universität der Künste-Berlin. Upon completion, she traveled to Novosibirsk on a research grant funded by the Goethe Institute, and then to Athens, Greece to participate in the Medea Electronique-Mixmedia Lab Residencies. Other awards include scholarships/grants from the United Kingdom of Norway, the Ulrich and Burga Knispel Foundation, and the Karl Hofer Gesellschaft e.V., Berlin. Popić has exhibited her work in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, the United States, Japan, Russia, Serbia and Croatia. She presently lives in Berlin.
Education
2008 – 2009 University of Art, Berlin, Multimedia, master class Rebecca Horn, Master of Fine Arts
2003 – 2008 University of Art, Berlin, Multimedia, master class Rebecca Horn, Bachelor of Fine Arts
2003 – 2005 University of Art, Berlin, Multimedia, master class Rebecca Horn, guest student
1999 – 2003 University of Belgrade, Faculty of Fine Arts, Painting
Awards/Scholarships
2010-2012 Studio Grant provided by “Karl Hofer Gesellschaft – Freundeskreis der UdK Berlin”
2009 “Meisterschülerpreis des Präsidenten” Award of the University of the Arts Berlin
2008 “Ulrich und Burga Knispel Preis” Award of the University of the Arts Berlin
Scholarship of Goethe Institut Novosibirsk (part of “sibSTANCIJA_09”)
“Medea Electronique – Mixmedia Lab Residencies”, Artist in Residence Scholarship in Athens and Sellasia, Greece
2006 – 2009 Scholarship of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation
1999 Academic Achievement Scholarship of the Kingdom of Norway
1999 – 2003 Serbian State Scholarship for Scientific and Artistic Development
Selected solo exhibitions
2014 A Territory, Gallery Greta, Zagreb/CRO
Take a Place, Whiteconcepts, Berlin/DE
2013 Urban Incubator: I am not my body, (supported by Goethe-Institut), Spanish House Pavilion Belgrade/RS
2012 Who´d Have Thought That Snow Falls – Performative Installation with Voice, Choregie Festival for New Music in cooperation with European Capital of Culture, Maribor/SLO
Solo Show, Kunst im Bauhof, Winterthur/CH
2010 Navigating Bodies, Gallery Birgit Ostermeier, Berlin/DE
2009 The Route of Vanish, State Museum of Arts in Novosibirsk/RU
2007 Lunik, Gallery Mel Factory, Vienna/AT
2004 The Flow, Gallery Stara Kapetanija, Belgrade/RS
2002 Long Distance, Gallery Zvono, Belgrade/RS
Selected group exhibitions
2014 Just Fair, Whiteconcepts, Berlin/DE
Zehn Stipendiatinnen der Stiftung Ulrich und Burga Knispel UdK Berlin, Kommunale Galerie Berlin/DE
2013 Art Market Budapest Art Fair, with Whiteconcepts, Budapest/HU
La Grande Migration, Millenaris Park, Budapest/HU
2012 Never Ever Ever Land, Anna Kustera Gallery, New York/USA
Ausstellung 6, Berlin Art Junction, GIZ, Berlin/DE
Vice Versa, Miami/USA
Vice Versa, Kommunale Galerie, Berlin/DE
DMY, International Design Festival, Berlin/DE
The universe is built on a plan, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin/DE
2011 Preview Aftershow, Whiteconcepts, Berlin/DE
Preview Berlin, with Whiteconcepts , Berlin/DE
The End of the Dream, MicaMoca, Berlin
Crossing the Line. A Drawing Exhibition, Schaufenster. Schauraum für Kunst, Berlin/DE
Westwendischer Kunstverein, KUNSTkammer, Gartow/DE
KunstAktienausstellung in den Uferhallen,Berlin/DE
Fundacja Forum Krasków,Krasków Palace, Marcinowice/PL
Austellung 3, Berlin Art Junction, GIZ Haus, Berlin/DE
2010 Die Grammatik des Buches, Artothek / Städtische Galerie, Munich/DE
Situs Inversus, Universität der Künste, Berlin /DE
Real Presence, Gallery Zvono, Belgrade/RS
Hipernatural, Kunstcampus Heidestraße, Berlin/DE
Gute Karten, Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin /DE
2009 Medeaelectronique, Kinitiras Studio, Athens/GR
Lucid Dream, Galerie Birgit Ostermeier, Berlin/DE
Wish You Were Here, University of the Arts, Berlin/DE
2008 Schein, Gallery Birgit Ostermeier, Berlin/DE
Beware the Aftereffects, Infernoesque Project Space, Berlin/DE
Offbeat: Look and See the Violence Against Women
Student Cultural Centre, Belgrade/RS
2006 Tiger im Löwenpalais, Stiftung Starke, Berlin /DE
2005 100th: Half Eternity, Sophiensäale, Berlin
Medical Treatment and Art, Hiroshima University Hospital, Hiroshima/JP
Devenir: Becoming Minor, Gallery of the Belgrade Cultural Centre, Belgrade/RS
April Meetings – Film Works of the Class of Rebecca Horn
Gallery of the Student Cultural Centre, Belgrade/RS
Fotografija Project, Crosspoints Gallery, Belgrade/RS
Fliehende Bücher, Old library, University of Arts Berlin/DE
2004 Oh Tender Sailorman, Turboplex Gallery, Berlin/DE
Mitternacht Tage, Stiftung Starke, Berlin/DE
2003 50th Biennale di Venezia, Performance with Marina Abramovic’s “The Independent Artists Group“, Venice/IT
4 Zeiten des Jahres, Theatre project of the University of the Arts, Berlin/DE
2002 Achi – Young Architectural Thought, Centralny Dom Hudozhnika, Moscow/RUS
2001 Real Presence, Tito’s Museum, Belgrade/RS
2000 30th Exhibition of Drawings and Sculptures, Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade/RS
Belgrade Youth Cultural Centre, Belgrade/RS
Move – Project for the Cultural Awakening of Serbia, Center for the Presentation of Youth, Arilje, Zrenjanin/RS
1999 29th Exhibition of Drawings and Sculptures, Faculty of Fine Arts, Belgrade Youth Cultural Centre, Belgrade/RS
10th Biennial of Student Drawing, Gallery Studentski grad, Belgrade/RS