October 21, 2009

Exhibition in Slovenia

Zoran Poposki is featured in the international exhibition Video in Progress 3: Fields of the Performative, at the Kino Siska Centre for urban Culture in Ljubljana, in collaboration with Photon Gallery, from October 20 to November 15 2009.

The third edition of Video in Progress exhibition project, curated by Kolektiva, is the result of international competition on the subject of performance for video. The 46 selected videos, featuring various formal and conceptual premises, present a heterogeneous interpretation of performance in relation to video within contemporary visual art. Everything from regular performance in front of audience in a gallery to an exhibitionist and voyeuristic presentation of a body as an aesthetic object, absurd actions, exploration of identity, social and political roles, subjective views, narratives and the creation of film or documentary atmosphere.

Poposki’s video performance deals with the topic of difference and otherness as an integral aspect in the process of demarcation of boundaries of one’s own identity.
"Zoran Poposki illustrates the influence of a society full of prejudices as to the image of an individual. The performer is, beyond recognition, covered with projections of words that express mainstream society’s view of those who live at its margins", write Metka Zupanič & Vesna Bukovec in the exhibition catalog.

August 27, 2009

Saatchi Online Top 10

Zoran Poposki has been selected among the Top 10 artists working with New Media registered on Saatchi Online. The selection was made by Georgia Haagsma, Gallery Assistant at a contemporary art gallery in London and a freelance art critic.
Saatchi Online is an online gallery of the London gallery for contemporary art, the Saatchi Gallery.

July 30, 2009

At the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico


Zoran Poposki's video performance Here has been selected by the Museo de Arte de Ponce (MAP) in Puerto Rico to be shown at Museo de Arte de Ponce in Plaza las Americas MAP @ PLAZA, San Juan.

As a preview to the symposia Encounter with the Art Blogs: Puerto Rico and Beyond, MAP will screen Refresh: Projections of New Media at MAP. Refresh will include artists from Puerto Rico, USA, Canada, Germany, and Macedonia.

The concept of Refresh comes from the browser's refresh button, which allows a static page to update information that has changed. Refreshing is tantamount to restoring strength, animation, and stimulation. MAP is, in addition to renewing its building and reinstalling its collection, "willing to send a new signal: a museum open to new ways of connecting with a young community of artists and the public," as stated by MAP's Assistant Curator Maria Arlette de la Serna, coordinator of this event in collaboration with Carmen Olmo-Terrasa.

“The selected videos address the concepts of new and change—as regards identity or politics or a discourse on historical antagonisms,” says guest artist Arnaldo Román. “The vast majority of artists, especially those in Europe, focus on topics that are related to their current historical situation, change, and globalization, and how it has affected the state of things, for better or for worse.” The public can see Refresh at MAP@PLAZA from August 1st through August 6 with the current exhibition Museo de Arte de Ponce: Fifty Years looking to the Future.

Museo de Arte de Ponce or MAP is the largest art museum in the Caribbean and widely regarded as one of the best in the Americas. It houses the finest collection of European art in the Caribbean, including works by Rubens, Delacroix and Murillo, as well as works by Puerto Rican artists.

At the NDK in Sofia, Bulgaria

A digital print by Zoran Poposki is featured in the exhibition "Contemporary Macedonian Artists" at the National Palace of Culture (NDK) in Sofia, Bulgaria, from July 1-31, 2009.
NDK is the biggest exhibition and congress center in Bulgaria.

July 18, 2009

Public space: participatory art project

Zoran Poposki’s latest project, PUBLIC SPACE: Right to the City (2008-2009), was presented at the main city square in Skopje, Macedonia, on 23 June 2009. Utilizing situationist tactics and focused on a collective utopian intervention into urban geography, this year-long participatory art project explores issues of “ownership” of public space, as well as citizens’ power to “write” urban memory as represented by the names of public space in the city of Skopje, thus reappropriating the urban landscape which belongs to all citizens.

As a space shared by all citizens, public space is one of the main sources of local identity. Furthermore, public space is where citizens communicate and interact with each other and become engaged in public matters, and is thus a precondition for public freedom. Thus the right, as well as the necessity, for the citizens to use public space as something which belongs to them and as a place for public debate and engaging in public discourse.

Phase one of the project started in October 2008, with a publication of an open call to the citizens of Skopje for “submitting proposals for changes to the names of streets, bridges, parks and squares in Skopje”, published on 8 October 2008 as an ad in the largest daily newspaper in Macedonia, “Dnevnik”. The open call states:
The city of Skopje is not defined by its buildings or other facilities. This city is defined by its inhabitants, with their family ties, labor relations, with their knowledge and actions. It is not made up of the past, but of the present which is continuously being created by the people living in it. Public spaces in the city, such as squares, parks, streets and bridges, which belong to all citizens, should reflect that fact. They should carry the names of people living and working in this city today, celebrate each one of us and not just historic figures. They should mark important dates in our lives, and not the past.

Therefore, fellow citizens, we call upon you to suggest new names for the public spaces in our cit. Let’s name them after:
- current inhabitants of Skopje who are good parents, partners, friends, neighbors, collaborators;
- dates marking important events in our everyday lives (birthdays, weddings, etc.);

- our favorite things, such as colors, sounds, activities, etc.


Please submit your proposals along with a brief explanation (no more than half a page) online at www.public-space.info or mail them to CC Tocka, 6 Antonio Grubisic, 1000 Skopje. All proposals will be forwarded to the Skopje City Council.
Let’s make this city truly ours.

In the second stage, realized as part of the Skopje Cultural Summer 09, all proposals by the citizens of Skopje collected in the previous nine months were included in a new map of Skopje, exhibited as a billboard on the central square in Skopje for a period of one week, along with a one-day performance by the artist. A survey of passers-by was conducted, to explore their opinion on public spaces in Skopje and solicit new proposals. All collected proposals, with documentation of the process, will be officially submitted to the Skopje City Council.

May 23, 2009

Young Visual Artist Award

Zoran Poposki is featured in an exhibition at the City Museum of Skopje, as finalist for the Young Visual Artist Award YVAA DENES 09, awarded by the Contemporary Arts Center Skopje in cooperation with the Foundation for a Civil Society in New York.
Poposki exhibits documentation of his public art project "Abstract Politics". Conceived as a series of abstract prints for billboards installed as megalights on the busiest streets in Skopje, this project aims to reclaim commercially usurped public space for artistic purposes. As space shared by all citizens, public space is where individuals see and are seen by others as they engage in public affairs and is thus a precondition for “public freedom” (Hannah Arendt).

The Abstract Politics series of digital prints for billboards draws upon a wide array of artistic strategies traditionally used by abstraction (the liberating power of randomness, chaos, gestures), while at the same time recontextualizing them and translating them into the language of new media. The starting point in the process is the media, i.e. news coverage of national and global political issues. In the contemporary, digital version of the aleatory principle, the headline is searched in Google Images, and the search results thus obtained serve as raw material which is later digitally edited.

April 29, 2009

Award in Spain

A collaborative art project by Zoran Poposki (Macedonia), Eva Petric (Slovenia/Austria) and Markuz Wernli Saito (Switzerland/Japan), has been awarded at an international competition for public art projects in the Basque city of Sondika, Spain.
In competition with 203 projects from 38 countries, including the United States, Germany, Austria, Canada, Columbia, China, South Korea, Turkey, Finland, France and Venezuela, the art trio acting under the name Z + E + M Collective was shortlisted among the five finalists and received special mention.
The project, entitled “Recipe Benches,” is a multimedia installation in public space focused on the enormous creative and utopian potential of food, as one of the key features of Sondika's identity.

February 17, 2009

At the Museum of Contemporary Art - Skopje

Zoran Poposki's work is featured in the exhibition "Identities" at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje, Macedonia, from February 19 to March 12, 2009. Poposki exhibits digital prints and video performances dealing with difference and otherness, including collaborations with US artist Christian Faur and Jane Stefanov.

January 15, 2009

Different (2009)


Different from zoran poposki on Vimeo.


Video performance (2:00 min) by Zoran Poposki in collaboration with Christian Faur (USA).

Different consists of projections onto the artist’s body of words in English that signify difference, until his personal identity disappears completely in the darkness of these signifiers. The concept of otherness is an integral part of defining one’s own identity, which is done in a relational process with the other, where the other is emphasized as different.



In the performance Different, Zoran Poposki illustrates the influence of a society full of prejudices as to the image of an individual. The performer is, beyond recognition, covered with projections of words that express mainstream society’s view of those who live at its margins.