Сеќавање на еден идеалист

24 Oct, 2001

Сеќавање на еден идеалист
Самостојна изложба

Славица Јанешлиева

„степен галерија”, културна локација „Место“, Скопје

24.10.2001

Текст: Небојша Вилиќ

КаталогPDF mk

Делото поставено во Националната галерија на Македонија во 2015.

Installation on display in 2015 at the National Gallery of Macedonia.

Text from catalogue (2001) by Nebojša Vilić:

In the current art events in Macedonia covered with the notion "private narratives", the opus of Slavica Janešlieva plays an important role. In accordance to her previous projects, she continues the course of clearing her own past and the past of her family, tending to introduce a different light in the attitude towards them.

But, this time the evocation of the past is positioned outside the personal, or, more precisely, by way of posing the problem of ideology, through her private discourse, Slavica Janešlieva gets out of the domain of the general, that is, the public. The project "Remembering an Idealist" contains an ambiguity that stems from the duality of understanding "memory". In a sense, Janešlieva positions the memory as her actualization of the idealist who, on his side, evokes his own memories of some situations and events of his life. This actualization of the ideological aspect of the actions of the "idealist" and his memories of them opens the basic discourse of this project: the projectivity as an objective and as its ending. An appropriate understanding of this projectivity can be found in the definition of the notion of ideology developed by Branislav Sarkanjac in his book "Ideology and Subjectivity", where he distinguishes (and, therefore, defines precisely) the ideology to eidology and ideelogy.

The photographic - objective - textual triptych of Janešlieva has the elements of this understanding: the eidological is shown in the part of the pre-war photography of an outing of Macedonian progressive students near Belgrade in front of which stands the Order of Labor of Third Class; the ideelogical is shown in the part of the photography of Janešlieva as a pioneer in front of which stands the traveling bag of the idealist where his notes and reviews were kept, while the discourse of the ideological (as a totality of the eidological and ideelogical) is shown in the part of the photography of the funeral of the idealist in front of which stands the accumulation "The Complete Works of J. B. Tito. The three parts are connected with copies of appropriate texts on the idealist: the first part with the text of the celebration of the First of May in 1949, the second with the text "One of the First Tasks" and the third with the text "Care for the People".

The extraordinary skillful connection that Janešlieva makes with this act completely embraces the question of the relation of the ideology and the subjectivity: the eidological (as a reflection of the reality) of the idealist is transformed into ideelogical (as an influence of the ideas upon the world of things) which Janešlieva lives through and ends with the ideological "packed into complete works" (as a metaphor of a complete and rounded, exhausted opus).

The portrait of the idealist is made of poppy seed and tautologically (maybe more precise would be to say semiogically) repeats his poem "Afion" where the projectivity is included in its full size. The ideological aspect of this projectivity is presented in the last, additionally written lines "But, the day will come...", but it is even more obvious in the pictorial - objective - textual diptych that refers to the burial of the texts and the copy of "Beli Mugri" with a personal dedication to the idealist. The fact that after the war the idealist could not find them becomes the teleological element of the projectivity. This aspect of the ideological shows its ideotelia. Or, as Sarkanjac states, "the ideotelia is inherent to the ideology as ideelogy, that is, it always offers (or forces to) a certain aim, the telos of the society (teleology), which is always in the future". By choosing this part of the memories of the idealist (the not-finding of the buried), Janešlieva expresses not only metaphorically and symbolically her attitude towards the ideology, but she also decisively defines it.

Therefore, the private experience of Janešlieva of a certain ideology, an ideology she has experienced, is used for the problem of the research to be raised or removed to a general level. The transformation of the private into public, on its side, defines the duality of this project as a duality where the private and the public completely surpass, and therefore, neglect the private and its tabooing, but at the same time remain as constituents of the project. So, the convictions of the idealist (no matter how much ideologicized) in the necessity of representing and supporting the Macedonian cause (as complete privacy), passes into the spheres of establishing the critical discourse of Janešlieva towards her current reality. The project is not in itself a critique of the referent ideology of the idealist, but rather a critique of what is happening today with the results or the achievements of its representing and supporting the cause.

This critique poses specific, yet essential, questions of the relations with the social which, instead of the militant - critical discourse towards the ideology and the idea of projectivity, shows an estheticized critical discourse towards the social as an exponent of the public. With that moment Janešlieva defines and fulfills the meaning and the function of the engagement in the art and of the artists of today - a meaning which implicitly demands having an attitude towards the social reality.