We are among the very last to have witnessed the night sky with only real, glitching stars, before our orbit became diluted with technology. Unimaginable pollution of machines. Hidden satellites indefinable on the horizon, monitor us from above, concealed... as we pray for redemption... hidden machines, masked as stardust, lurking like cracks in the foundation, hiding in the walls of a lost highway motel room, embedded in families’ DNA, in the estate agent’s smirking face, and in the neighbor’s brief hello. It is hiding everywhere, in every detail. Hiding in every politician’s TV appearance, in algorithms, in every song written —hiding like sugar in a Sichuan takeout. Hiding in our ignorance and shame. Since it was us, ourselves, who scorched the sky. In our fear and guilt, we seek solace and forgiveness while stargazing through barbed wire.

In this presentation - Slobodan Zivic operates at the threshold of presence and past, engaging with materiality as both substance and memory. Drawing on his Slavic maternal ancestry and craft-works, his practice evokes a sense of emotional mercy for the artist. This exhibition dissolves the boundary between painting and sculpture; his interventions suggest the presence of progress, showing that even the most static surfaces hold traces of movement. Zivic’s practice is one in which materials are not merely manipulated but fundamentally altered, leaving behind an index of controlled distortion. This particular direction reflects a search within dissonance itself.

Working-Glove Paintings
In a typical Duchampian spirit - Using Prefabricated objects as a symbolic language, “Working-Glove Paintings” is about belongingness, cultural heritage and status. And that specific privilage - able to grow up with resources due to hard labor and actions by ancestors - that transcends cultural class iniquities to independence.

Slobodan Zivic is best known for working with contemporary and technological materials and methods. In his new solo exhibition, however, he goes back to his roots to work with simpler means, and with drawing in focus. For Zivic, drawing became a way of processing his experiences during the turbulent years of growing up. Over time, drawing developed into rituals in everyday life, and thus gained a symbolic value beyond the original therapeutic purpose. Expressing oneself creatively in this way became a way of developing as a person and thus became a rite of passage to adulthood. With a present global crisis, which has once again created a turbulent existence, Zivic has in his new exhibition turned to his vulnerable safe haven and recreated the rituals, but in a new version. Inspired by his childhood in the former Yugoslavia, Zivic has used means such as ballpoint pens, lighters, and firecrackers. Something that made a strong impression on him was how messages were often burned along roofs, under stairs, and over corners and edges, both inside and outside buildings. A way that he experienced as unique to this time and place. In his new works, Zivic lets these burn marks, together with the drawings, spread over the edges of the canvas, thus transforming the two-dimensional surfaces into three-dimensional sculptures. In the abstract expression, however, he transforms the messages on the walls and ceilings into the child's wordless and associative expression.

"Rite of Passage (Ritual Series)” (2020) is Slobodan Zivic's third solo exhibition.
Elis Monteverde Burrau read one of his work at the opening 01.10.2020

Ball paintings (Ball & Chain) by Slobodan Zivic
Text (non-chronological): Yvette Drissen examination “Competative Society and Mental Disorders”.

“Nowadays, competition is central to the operation of markets, and fosters innovation, productivity and growth - all of which create wealth and reduce poverty. Competition is the backbone of many economic policies. Virtues of competition are for example: “more choices and innovation; greater efficiency and productivity; economic development and growth; greater wealth equality; a stronger democracy by dispersing economic power; and greater wellbeing by promoting individual initiative, liberty, and free association”. Surely, competition has positive aspects in our competitive society, since it motivates people to perform better. Moreover, it promotes investing in new ideas, efficiency, productivity, quality and freedom of choice for example. Yet, competition also brings about negative consequences. In a competitive society, we have the idea that everyone can achieve success, as long as one puts in effort and use ones abilities. Yet, in practise this is not possible. Since success is something relative, we cannot all be successful. Still, the idea that we can all be successful if we work hard and use our abilities is dominant. Successful people must have deserved it, our meritocratic creed goes; and unsuccessful people did not work hard enough and/or did not use their abilities well enough. You fail if you don’t live up to this norm.”

“With this (identity-politics-themed) work i’m channeling subjects like double identity and migration consisting of a Yugoslavian passport blown up in scale, and a sound piece which is a mashup of the former Yugoslavian and the Swedish national anthems - which become a metaphor for inner conflicts that arise from being part of a country that no longer exists.”

The exhibition sees the artists extending personal reflections on universal matters that relate to borders, displacement/migration and social biases. The works inform in the midst the construction of expat colonies overseas, silent norms underpinned by cultural and aesthetical standards that dictate the conditions of entering and habituating certain rooms, the resurfacing and upsurge of patriarchial orders and imperatives towards women and the malaise of eternal waiting by way of official/social agencies for pivotal moments to arise that never seem to do.

Image taken from artist Slobodan Zivic’s expired passport from former land of Yugoslavia. Before the civil war Zivic had dual citizenships - Swedish and Yugoslavian.

Artists: Jesper Nordahl​, Slobodan Zivic​, Sahar Tavasolian​, Salad Hilowle​, Ulrika Gunnarsdotter​, Agnieszka Abramowicz​ and Oktawian Bohdziewicz​.

Sound: Swedish national anthem (Du gamla, du fria) mashed up with Yugoslavian national anthem (Hej, Sloveni).

“Enter a surface” with a fearless yet mindful tone the streets and its mirror allow us to jump into a hole . two builders of webs . some hijackers quest . social loners . searchers and dreamers . presents an explosion with a dual thread . where the soul may appear . in order and chaos they both see a way . hard metal and in a loose limbed flar . end of things as we know it and an island of thoughts . stepping past the surface with the unknown as our rock

Paintings and mixed surfaces melt next to each other.
A serie of objects hand in hand. Eye to eye a very warm welcome to enter a surface, an exhibition by Alexandra Karpilovski & Slobodan Zivic.

Memories of an era when interrupted events dominated everyday life. As finest powdery snow, forming into a iced, hardened snowball. A sensed emotion subsides in all possible unexpected ways, spiraling into what feels like an existential abyss. Differential layers of thoughts and feelings, where previous memories with the present, intertwine to form some surreal place. This place is a palace of refuge in its worn out, almost fallen condition with years of difficult winters, darkness and seclusion. Structure is non-existential and exists only for a second. You wait for me with open arms.

“Just as in modern day music, royal sculptures in past were often remixes or replicas. We tend to collab, edit, and influence each others work; but more rarely; in a live situation where they fit each other, just like our voices in an evenly balanced conversation. At Stadshuset, on Kungsholmen, just under the tower, lay a gold-leafed sleeping Birger Jarl; the famed 13th century earl, and soon to become king.” Sickla Sikkness Riddim Birger Jarl RMX, organized by Ilja Karilampi and Martin Kozlowski, takes place in a soon to be demolished office building in Sickla, Stockholm. The exhibition brings together a group of artists and creatives from different backgrounds. The final result aims to highlight not only each practice, but the collaborative act in the way the works are hung, looking like an eery film set in a German movie. Taking its starting point in the idea of the replica or remix, and the statue of Birger Jarl as such, it potentially unleashes new connections between never before seen constellations.

Elias Awada | Emanuel Batali | Danni Cabaruvias | Nhu Duong | Krita.en.5a | Ilja Karilampi | Tony Karlsson | Alexandra Karpilovski Martin Kozlowski | Erika Lager | LYXLIV | Olga Pedan | Max Ronnersjö | DJ Skype | Jim Thorell | Slobodan Zivic