Chronologies
Jelena Vesić

Drangularijum – Ready-Made Exhibition or Peoples’ Curio Cabinet

Keywords: conceptual art participatory practices ready-made thematized role of the audience youth/student organization

Drangularijum (meaning the collection of small and curious things, Trinketarium, drangulija = a trinket) was one of the constitutive exhibitions from the early history of the Student Cultural Center (SKC) gallery in Belgrade that determined the future work and orientation of the space. The exhibition was significant in terms of its break from the dominant exhibition practice in local art institutions, which normally followed the modernist canon of the great-artist-and-his-work and celebrated the work of art “made by artists’ hand.” Instead, Drangularijum offered a “ready-made exhibition,” a display of already existing objects that were in a different sense—intimate, conceptual, or humorous—linked to the context of artistic life. The artists were invited to exhibit “things” that were dear to them. This idea was the collective conceptual proposition developed during the sessions of the gallery’s Redakcija (redaction, or the editorial board of the gallery). Answering the call to artists to “contribute anything that represented themselves and their own creativity or work,” quite a diverse selection of objects were brought into the gallery and made into an exhibition.

The collective and experimental character of the project makes it difficult to clearly locate the identity and authorship of an exhibition curator, in the contemporary sense of the term. According to some, the idea came from Raša Todosijević; according to others, Zoran Popović was unofficially the central proponent of the project. Curators and art critics Jerko Denegri, Bojana Pejić, and Biljana Tomić wrote in the accompanying catalogue, explaining the exhibition concept—so it can be said that they articulated how to read the show, while Dunja Blažević operated as the editor of the gallery program, having a crucial influence to the general tendencies of the gallery.

Drangularijum fostered a research-based and experimental exhibition practice in the newly opened space for young cultural practitioners. Pejić wrote in the exhibition catalogue: “The conception of Drangularijum is not new. Similar exhibitions do happen in the world, and there are now some individual attempts here as well. Drangularijum does not want to be new and original. It is just the first seriously organized presentation of this kind in our city. […] It should have happened much earlier if we haven’t been under the pressure of financing all the time. […] Drangularijum is a challenge. It is an attempt to introduce uneasiness or provocation in the static atmosphere of Belgrade gallery life. […] Drangularijum does not want to show anything beautiful, characteristic or likeable. Drangularijum does not cuddle your gaze or warm your heart.”[1]

The exhibition exposed the new character of artist: not the artist as creator, but as the personality behind the work (with no desire to fetishize personality, artistic life, or life itself). Drangulija (a small and curious thing) was the mediator of this new approach. Denegri wrote: “Instead of emphasizing the privileged position of artistic work with the help of the artificially built scale of aesthetic values, what happens nowadays is direct manifestation of artistic motivation from occasional transient and intense moments of human behavior. […] These tendencies lead towards the proximity, almost to equalization of artistic and life content—the art will survive only if it manages to conquest the maximum of reality, which is still outside of art. […] The artists who accepted participation in this exhibition have accepted at the same time the challenge of checking and investigating their own professional and social status.”

 

[1]

All quotations in this section are from the accompanying exhibition catalogue to Drangularijum.

Date: June 22–30, 1971

Participants: Marina Abramović, Josif Alebić, Bojan Bem, Radomir Damjanović Damnjan, Bora Iljovski, Stevan Knežević, Stojan Kovačević-Grande, Slobodan Milivojević-Era, Milija Nešić, Dušan Otašević, Neša Paripović, Zoran Popović, Radomir Reljić, Halil Tikveša, Raša Todosijević, Gergelj Urkom

Art critics and curators (authors of catalogue texts): Bojana Pejić, Biljana Tomić, Ješa Denegri

Catalogue design: Raša Todosijević

Editor of Visual Arts Program of SKC: Dunja Blažević

Location: Student Cultural Center (SKC) gallery, Belgrade