Mirjana Boba Stojadinović: Dearest Videos

The artist Antoanetta Marinov presented a selection of her video
works together with videos by other artists under one general title
Dearest Videos. In the darkness of the Podroom – word play meaning
“a basement” – gallery of the Belgrade Cultural Centre, which
indeed is located in a basement and has no natural light, the screens
and the projections flicker and almost unrecognizable sounds are
audible. The works are sensible in their colour range and each work
is presented in the space in a completely different way – from a
projection covering a whole wall, via projections over objects,
to projections on different screens and monitors. Each work vibrates
in its own way, yet they all shape one impression. Moreover,
the works give an impression that one author made them,
and not five. The general sensation is calming and inviting for the
visitors to get to know one work after the other, and
to discover them throughout the space and in the hidden rooms.
Each work repeats one action, yet each work gives off a different
sensation. The repetition in the video works, or what is called
“a loop”, presents a sign of contemporary time – an endless repetition
of identical goods, commercials and so on. The artist Antoanetta
Marinov idiosyncratically approaches this phenomenon. On the one
hand, she steps out of the repetition of her own works, even when it
relates to an unfamiliar audience, by bringing a small group of artists
together with whom she presents the works in Belgrade gallery
Podroom, and on the other hand – not only the actions presented in
the videos show pointless bits of the everyday which moreover repeat
ad infinitum, but she is utterly fascinated by how much she can
bring these actions out in the smallest possible amount, and yet they
still retain a distinct artistic charge.
Somewhere in the darkness, moving films reveal intentionally
subdued artistic gestures, which are repeated, and which,
in combination with their natural sounds, recall children mechanical
toys. There is no beginning and there is no end.

Dearest Videos by and with Antoanetta Marinov. Invited artists: Patrycja German,
Jonas Schmitt, Miná Minov, Selene States.