Identity (De)composition
The problem of identity, in whichever way we perceived it and regardless of whether we regard it as a central or peripheral issue, has preoccupied artists for nearly a full century. In spite of the modern request that artists should have full autonomy, artists started reexamining their own identities (national, racial, gender, sexual) by redefining its function and role in society, using various media, thereby articulating social reality.
Moving in that direction, with her series of drawings entitled Strolls Nevena Aleksovski examines her own identity-related position, while at the same time also trying to open up issues concerning the contemporary artistic nomadic quality and concepts of social roles, home, assimilation and exile. However, the question arises as to the manner in which she does that i.e. what type of drawings we are actually dealing with.
Even though Aleksovski’s many-year long artistic experience can be characterized as multimedial (painting, video, installation, performance), the central point of her works are drawings which have mainly been created during the period when she wasn’t living in Serbia. They can be classified as notes or trails of artistic instinctive and intimate sensations, with miraculous and chaotic compositions, reminiscent of children’s drawings. Starting from an internal dialogue and analyzing her own emotions, dilemmas, positions, she seems to be constructing a specific system of signs which seem to suggest to the viewer, amongst other things, the banality of the day to day communication as well as the spiritual and emotional void of people today. Simple sentences in the English language or her mother tongue which appear on some of these drawings give their contribution (Day one: no clue; Pusti, pusti modu).
On the other hand, Nevena Aleksovski’s works should also be viewed in a wider social-political context. Due to the domination of the logic of the capitalist market which defines the direction of contemporary art, an artist is required to constantly and obediently adapt to the imposed rules of the game, the never ending manufacturing process, exchange and consumption (reception) of works of art. Competitiveness, networking, innovation, flexibility, migration are only a few of the desirable skills. Each act of deviation, non-acceptance, and uncompromising decisions and critical approach can alienate an artist from the system in which art exists, due to which he/she loses his/her market potential and becomes a marginal phenomenon left to fend for himself/herself.
On that very trail of self-retrospection of belonging, adaptation, or, simply put, the act of being, in the world of art as well as outside of it, the artist contemplates finding, mapping, shaping her own identity (whatever it may be). Filling up the space of the gallery with fragments of her real-life experience, the artist creates a unique space of a symbolic home, hearth or refuge in which she feels safe.
Bearing in mind all of the above, we are faced with the impression that the artist is creating a well thought-out, yet subtle, strategy of resistance. She creates her own artistic practice in an escapist type of way and remains true to herself and her own beliefs, ignoring the dictate of the contemporary art market. In that sense, Nevena Aleksovski’s entire project can be placed within the context of transgression – overstepping the boundary from pragmatic and instrumental into the outer world sphere, in other words, a jump from trivial or everyday objects of culture into exceptional works of art (Misko Suvakovic).
Vladimir Bjeličić, translated by Biljana Ackovski