Danube Dialogues 

Art Dialogue: Novi Sad – Timisoara

Diana Marincu (RO), Sanja Kojić Mladenov (RS), Danica Bićanić (RS), Andrea Medar (RO), Liliana Mercioiu Popa (RO), Oana Paula Vainer (RO/DE), Dragan Vojvodić (RS), Anica Vučetić (RS)

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Art dialogue: As two geographically and culturologically close cities and proclaimed European Capitals of Culture 2021, Novi Sad – Timisoara has been an integral part Danube Dialogues Festival continuously since 2016. Thanks to exceptional co-operation of the Bel Art Gallery in Novi Sad and Jecza Gallery in Timisoara, the artists and their works share a specific dialogue relationship in the spirit of the main idea of the Danube Dialogues Contemporary Art Festival. It is the curators’ intention to identify the points of coincidence, convergence or opposition between individual artistic sensibilities and language. These “art dialogues” impose the “extended” action, new and different consideration, discovery of a different perception and contextual position of work of art in an everyday reality. This year’s exhibition of electronic art is placed in authentic alternative spaces of Petrovaradin Fortress and Suburbium. A famous fortress on the Danube was built by Austria (in the period from 1692-1780) due to a constant threat from the Turks and vicinity of the border with the Ottoman Empire. The awareness of historical distance, an unexpected merging (or confrontation) of the spirit of two epochs is “sharpening” the action of selected works of Novi Sad and Timisoara

Diana Marincu: Diana Marincu is a curator and art critic. She holds a Master Degree in History and Theory of Art from The National University of Arts in Bucharest. She is a Ph.D. student at the same university, conducting research on curatorial discourses on identity and periphery, built around some geographical criteria in big exhibitions and biennials. On Fiction and Reality, representing Romania at the 56th edition of the Venice Biennale. She is artistic director of Art Encounters Foundation.

Sanja Kojić Mladenov: Sanja Kojić Mladenov is a PhD, curator, art historian and researcher in the field of recent artistic practice, media and gender. Graduated History of Art at the Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade and completed Msc and PhD Interdisciplinary Gender Studies at the University of Novi Sad. Senior Curator at the MOCAV,Novi Sad. Curator of Serbian Pavilion on 54th Venice Biennale, which won the UniCredit Venice Award. Author and curator of many thematic exhibitions and research projects in Serbia and abroad.

Danica Bićanić (1985): Danica Bićanić completed her master’s studies in sculpture at the Academy of Arts, Novi Sad. She is currently a graduate student of doctoral studies in fine arts at the same Academy. She has been active since 2006 and has had nine solo and several group exhibitions and other performances in Serbia and abroad. She has won several awards. She is a member of the SULUV Presidency. She lives and works in Novi Sad.

Andreea Medar (1990): Andreea Medar is a Romanian visual artist. Trained as a painter, she is currently interested in objects and environments, sculptures, media installations and video. Her images rewrite her own, personal imagery in an always surprising and paradoxically very direct alphabet which associates contrasting elements and constructs encrypted images not easily or fully open to the viewer. Lives and works in Târgu-Jiu and Timișoara.

Liliana Mercioiu Popa (1975): Liliana Mercioiu Popa is a Romanian visual artist based in Timişoara, where she teaches painting at the Faculty of Art and Design and activates in artist groups IN-FORMAT and Avantpost. Her work consists of various forms of expression, from painting and drawing to installations and photography. Her interests are nuanced trough her personal view of the macro and micro historical contexts and the poetics/politics of space with human and non-human coexistance as species.

Oana Paula Vainer: Oana Paula Vainer graduated from the National University of Arts, Bucharest and the Arts and Design Academy, Stuttgart. In 2007 she stopped working with ceramics and started experimenting with performance, video and new ways of expressing herself, avoiding classic mediums. Now she uses her body and sometimes everyday elements as work materials. Her practices interrogate social and personal realities and references social and political realities of the place she left and the place she lives.

Dragan Vojvodić: Dragan Vojvodić is multimedia artist who began his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, and graduated in at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, expressing himself through various forms of media (performance, installation, video, photography, etc.). Participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Serbia and abroad, international festivals and residency projects. His works are to be found in the collections of several museums and galleries in Europe. Lives and works in Novi Sad.

Anica Vučetić (1962): graduated Painting at the University of Arts, Belgrade. Some of her selected solo exhibitions are in MoCA – MAC USP Ibirapuera, São Paulo; Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen; Instituto Cubano del Arte y la Industria Cinematograficos, Havana; Belgrade Cultural Centre; MoCA of Republic of Srpska, Banja Luka, Maribor Art Gallery, Maribor; etc. Her work is based on video installations and video environments. She won the Politika Award for the best exhibition in 2008.