Marko Tadić, We used to call it: Moon!

The opening of We used to call it: Moon exhibition and interview: 29.03.2012., at 20.00 pm, reception  at 21.00 pm.

In the interview will be participating: artist Marko Tadić, curator Vanja Žanko, Ana Dević and  Marija Borovičkić.

We used to call it: Moon exhibition brings a premiere to croatian audience of an instalation produced by Steirischer herbst festival in Graz 2011. and WHW collective, curators of group exhibition The second world where Marko Tadić's work is exhibited.

Marko Tadić’s work We used to call it: Moon! (2011/2012) reflects the author’s interest in the production of imaginary, fictional narrative worlds which research the modalities of alteration of past and future. The series of works, which also includes video-animation, a number of collages and objects, refers to several SF literary classics: The Invention of Morel by Adolf Bioy Cesares and From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne, which mention the phenomenon and discovery of the then unknown planet – the second moon. By making interventions on obsolete and already used everyday materials, like private notebooks or postcards, the author researches the possibilities of how this discovery could have been passed to or omitted in the collective imagination. Based on an accumulation of artefacts of a, simultaneously, non-existent and possible time, the artist’s visual archive brings fragmented echoes of the possible past, present and future. The archive ranges from disparate images of well-known to anonymous tourist destinations, sentimental motifs and kitsch illustrations in which the image of the second moon is incorporated discretely, yet obsessively, blurring the line between fiction and documentary, memory and imagination. By playing with the Wunderkammer genre, Marko’s cabinet of curiosities opens the door to a parallel reality in which the second moon serves as an invisible catalyst, which turns the familiar environment and history into some other locus composed of fragments of a possible world.

Although Tadić does not refer directly to recent examples, the motif of the second moon in contemporary culture is not a rare one: brings to mind, for example, the episodes of Tango from the Corto Maltese comic book by Hugo Pratt, the novel 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami in which two moons exist in a parallel world, or even Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia in which the appearance of a new planet on the Milky Way causes the end of the world. Having in mind those references we wonder what kind of world Marko’s work is recreating? As in the aforementioned examples, the world the artist is recreating strikingly resembles our own world. But instead of an explanation of that possible world, the artist invites us to try to decipher for ourselves the possible narratives coming out of it. What is the world with two moons like? What does the other moon tell us? To what extent are we responsible for its appearance? Is the other moon the agent of change?

Ana Dević

Fotografije pogledajte ovdje: 

Marko Tadić (Sisak, 1979.) is a graduated painter at Art academy in Florence, Italy.

He had a few independent exhibitons in: Osijek, Dubrovnik, Sisak, Velika Gorica, Zagreb, New York and Berlin, as well as group exhibitions in: Zagreb, Sisak, Velika Gorica, Zadar, Pula, Poreč, Labin, Zlarin, Rijeka, Ljubljana, Beograd, Kassel, Regensburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Vienna, Graz, Florence, Torino, Avesta, Helsinki, New York, Los Angeles and Nottingham.

He is a winner of various awards: third place at T-HT MSU (Zagreb, 2010.), Radoslav Putar award (Zagreb, 2008.), drawing award at Youth saloon (Zagreb, 2006.) and first place at Youth saloon (Sisak, 2000 and 2001). After the exhibition in Lauba he leaves for three months to an artist residence in Helsinki (HIAP). Currently he lives and works in Zagreb.

MarkoTadić

 

Curators: Marija Borovičkić, Vanja Žanko

Text: Ana Dević

Photo documentation: Damir Žižić, Steirischer herbst festival

Production: Steirischer herbst festival, WHW, Lauba

Translation: Zana Šaškin, Franka Batinić

Lectoring: Susan Jakopec (eng), Jelena Graovac (cro)

Techincal support: Jure Strunje

Special thanks: Inox Herceg