6/18/2020 Parole, Parole (As a Counter-Hegemonic Gesture): Red Discussion No. 2 (Pavilion of the Republic of North Macedonia; Maja Ćirić) - ARTMargins Contemporary art across the evolving global peripheries EXHIBITION REVIEWS Parole, Parole (As a Counter- Hegemonic Gesture): Red Discussion No. 2 (Pavilion of the Republic of North Macedonia; Maja Ćirić) BY MAJA ĆIRIĆ · PUBLISHED 11/05/2019 PAROLE, PAROLE(1) (AS A COUNTER-HEGEMONIC GESTURE): RED DISCUSSION NO. 2, PART OF SUBVERSION TO RED BY NADA PRLJA FOR THE PAVILION OF THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA The number of professionals in the ˆelds of the arts and humanities who are capable of critically re˜ecting upon the planetary condition appears to be small. Fewer still are those who express any critical, communal, or sel˜ess interest in connecting the legacy of the arts and humanities to the political anxieties of contemporary times. Ideally, of course, the Venice Biennale provides the possibility of commenting—in solidarity with cultural workers around the world—on such “interesting times.” (“May You Live In Interesting Times” is the title of this year’s Biennale.) https://artmargins.com/parole-parole-as-a-counter-hegemonic-gesture-red-discussion-no-2-part-of-subversion-to-red-by-nada-prlja-for-the-pavilion-of-the-republ… 1/9 6/18/2020 Parole, Parole (As a Counter-Hegemonic Gesture): Red Discussion No. 2 (Pavilion of the Republic of North Macedonia; Maja Ćirić) - ARTMargins Nonetheless, it takes a special effort by artists and curators to turn away from individualistic concerns and instead attempt to put forward a neo-communist framework of equality, to take a radically inclusive—yet paradoxically utopian—stance that could truly serve all the parties involved in the Biennale, individual and geopolitical alike. Take, for example, the representation of the geographical and mental region called the Balkans—a name that now stands in marked contrast to the market-oriented term “South-East Europe,” a region whose real imperatives became competitiveness and inequality. Among the artists representing this region at the 58th Venice Biennale is Nada Prlja, in the Pavilion of the Republic of North Macedonia. Arguably, regionalism is a thing of the past: everything that is said or done echoes everywhere around the world. For better or worse, however, the past still haunts us. Nada Prlja, Red Discussion 2, 2019. Live art event (with Charles Esche, Maurizio Lazzarato, Vlad Morariu, Chantal Mouffe, Laura Raicovich and Artan Sadiku). 6 participants, table, markers, 340x340x120cm, two-hour performance. Image courtesy of Nada Prlja. Photo © Ana Lazarevska. In response to this haunting, in the pavilion Prlja looks for a way to channel the timeless multitudes of the past and the present—to merge the provincial with the metropolitan character of contemporary social and artistic practices. Prlja is a London-based artist whose practice frequently examines questions of inequality, https://artmargins.com/parole-parole-as-a-counter-hegemonic-gesture-red-discussion-no-2-part-of-subversion-to-red-by-nada-prlja-for-the-pavilion-of-the-republ… 2/9 6/18/2020 Parole, Parole (As a Counter-Hegemonic Gesture): Red Discussion No. 2 (Pavilion of the Republic of North Macedonia; Maja Ćirić) - ARTMargins injustice, otherness, and migration, as well as critical discourses around nationalism, and transition in former socialist countries. In her contribution to this year’s Biennale, the artist attempts to articulate both the material and immaterial traces of former times, seeking to intertwine the sharp ideological contradictions persisting in the present with the immanent blurriness of our shared prospects. Needless to say, this effort would be a daring task even were it not for the aforementioned crisis of global and regional geopolitical values that haunts our “interesting times.” Housed at the Palazzo Rota Ivancich—an architectural symbol of decadence—Prlja’s contribution to the Biennale is entitled Subversion to Red, and represents the continuation of an ongoing art project that includes substantial documentation consisting of prior video works, live events, and installations created over the past several years. It also includes a new installation of sculptures and paintings entitled Subtle Subversion, The Collection: She Does What She Wants (discussed below). One of the most pivotal elements of Subversion to Red, however, is Red Discussion 2, an event that took place at the opening ceremony of the pavilion. Red Discussion 2 is the sequel to Red Discussion 1, an earlier “live art event” (as the artist calls it). Red Discussion 1 was conceived as a discussion amongst a group of important thinkers and theorists who were invited to analyze and critique a range of concepts.(2) At both discussions, the participants gathered around a red pentagonal table, writing a plethora of words and phrases on it as their debates ranged. The project was documented by a video, and the table itself is preserved as an artifact of Red Discussion 2 in the pavilion. https://artmargins.com/parole-parole-as-a-counter-hegemonic-gesture-red-discussion-no-2-part-of-subversion-to-red-by-nada-prlja-for-the-pavilion-of-the-republ… 3/9 6/18/2020 Parole, Parole (As a Counter-Hegemonic Gesture): Red Discussion No. 2 (Pavilion of the Republic of North Macedonia; Maja Ćirić) - ARTMargins Nada Prlja, Red Discussion 2, 2019. Live art event (with Charles Esche, Maurizio Lazzarato, Vlad Morariu, Chantal Mouffe, Laura Raicovich and Artan Sadiku). 6 participants, table, markers, 340x340x120cm, two-hour performance. Image courtesy of Nada Prlja. Photo © Ana Lazarevska. The Venetian version of the Red Discussion occurred under uneven concentric circles cast by dimmed lights on the rainy Venice Biennale preview night of May 8. At the center of the event (and the pentagonal table positioned in the middle of the room) was researcher Vlad Morariu, acting as a moderator; “a character from Dante’s purgatory” would be a perfect description of his actions, if the pavilion’s title Subversion to Red did not already evoke a Marxist optics. His task was to cater to everyone’s needs, a constantly revolving position that was a priori demanding, since whatever he did caused him to turn his back to at least two of the ˆve interlocutors sitting around the table, in the center of which he stood. These ˆve interlocutors were: Chantal Mouffe, political theorist; Laura Raicovich, writer and art worker; Maurizio Lazzarato, sociologist and philosopher; Charles Esche, curator; and Artan Sadiku, philosopher. During the event, various ideas and keywords were written onto the table, which served as a platform to build up and deˆne a set of key concepts and ideas that could be used as a guide for redeˆning contemporary society. At the beginning of Red Discussion 2, each of the ˆve central discussants introduced their worldview by proposing two concepts, or parole, parole. Mouffe opted for hegemony and agonism,(3) Lazzarato for https://artmargins.com/parole-parole-as-a-counter-hegemonic-gesture-red-discussion-no-2-part-of-subversion-to-red-by-nada-prlja-for-the-pavilion-of-the-republ… 4/9 6/18/2020 Parole, Parole (As a Counter-Hegemonic Gesture): Red Discussion No. 2 (Pavilion of the Republic of North Macedonia; Maja Ćirić) - ARTMargins rivoluzione (in Italian) and war. Esche proposed the concepts de- modernization (by which he meant turning away from a constraining modernist canon in order to allow for different epistemologies of culture to emerge) and being-in-common. Raicovich chose care and collectivity, while Sadiku contributed his thoughts on time and labor. While a heated debate unfolded within this inner circle seated around the table, a second circle beyond it consisted of semi-silent witnesses standing, sitting, and walking by. Most of them were art workers, at least one prominent mid-aged curator from each Balkan country as well as artists of all generations, some from the Balkans and others from the broader global artworld. Their presence and participation at the event indicated a sense of purpose and solidarity that caused them to skip the glamorous Venice Biennale preview dinner and instead gather to witness Red Discussion 2. In their act of choosing, they took up Prlja’s invitation to participate in a subversion, from the concept of the art industry and opted for an intellectual, interdisciplinary production of common-sense. They spontaneously formed a public realm between the critical thinkers in the inner circle and the artworks exhibited elsewhere in the pavilion. If subversion is to be found, it is in acts of denouncing the common superˆcial political representations at the Venice Biennale. The artworks exhibited in the other rooms of the palazzo are being shown under the title Subtle Subversion, The Collection: She Does What She Wants, which is Prlja’s direct intervention in and comment upon the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Skopje. The abstract sculptures of Serbian artist Olga Jevrić, who represented Yugoslavia at the Venice Biennale in 1958, or the legacy of the Macedonian artist Boris Nikoloski, for example, are still recognizable, but they have been reshaped by Prlja.(4) During Red Discussion 2, the presence of these artworks played little direct role, but they did point to two different, though not mutually exclusive, afˆliations that Prlja cultivates in her practice. One is representational and artistic (consisting of physical objects in an exhibition space), the other aspires to be https://artmargins.com/parole-parole-as-a-counter-hegemonic-gesture-red-discussion-no-2-part-of-subversion-to-red-by-nada-prlja-for-the-pavilion-of-the-republ… 5/9 6/18/2020 Parole, Parole (As a Counter-Hegemonic Gesture): Red Discussion No. 2 (Pavilion of the Republic of North Macedonia; Maja Ćirić) - ARTMargins interventionist, theoretical, and activist (as exempliˆed by the event of Red Discussion 2).