Simonida Rajčević
Simonida Rajcevic (1974) is a Belgrade-based artist and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. In the past two decades she has been an important voice in Serbian contemporary art. Her work will make you think and make you feel more than you expected, it’s the type of art you have to look at for a long time so that you can soak in all the layers, and you’ll come out with more questions than answers. Her range of references and a unique take she has on them is precisely what makes her art so appealing. It doesn’t matter if you respond to Giotto or Patti Smith, Simonida Rajcevic is both at the same time – a combination that’s hard to find, yet easy to appreciate.
Hi Simonida! To start our conversation, how would you introduce your approach to painting for our readers? How did you find your way to painting as the main means of your artistic expression?
My first exhibition was an installation, only then I started painting. In the beginning it seemed like installation will be my domain. However, I soon realized that themes and circumstances will be the deciding factors for the medium I’ll use to create something. Painting is perhaps not my main form of expression but that’s something that I’ve been coming back to, time and time again, and something that I am doing right now. It’s something quite old-fashioned, in a way an antiquated representation of themes with color and drawing. Adding atmosphere and magic in that frozen space both calms us and fills us with joy.
Our journal is meant to bring contemporary art closer to consumers who are not necessarily art critics or experts. Many of them see contemporary art as either too political or too abstract, in both cases – not easily approachable. How do you want viewers to approach your art? What’s the “key” to unlock Simonida Rajcevic’s worldview?
The invitation to simply look silently already logically makes us think. It immediately introduces associations and comparisons with what is already known, it creates curiosity and parallels with reality. Paintings were always either mirrors of reality that they served, or they attempted to resist it and rebel against it. Contemporary art sometimes appears as less available or hermetic, but these are only new ways for artists to speak and say something about what preoccupies them, what interests or worries them, what they feel is of general importance, even when it seems to be quite intimate. (Personal is, as we know, political.)
I’m interested in opening other people’s perceptions on all possible levels – from personal to abstract. It’s something that gives us new possibilities to enjoy art but more than that, to think differently about different issues.
photo: Milica Kolaric
Your series of paintings Strange Waves (2016) is particularly interesting to me as a viewer/consumer. What immediately draws attention is the contrast between the well-defined human form and almost abstract landscapes they inhabit. There is something lonely and almost anxiety provoking in the way these bodies interact with their environment. Can you tell me about your choice to confront your protagonists with these strange spaces?
The whole idea of that exhibition is to explore the sense of passivity and helplessness of individuals in society, of bodies that are both exposed and sensitive, as well as the possibility to use those feelings to turn them into their opposites. Human transcendence and overcoming, being surrounded by abstract landscapes against which the body seems small and vulnerable, especially considering the format it’s set in. It’s an inclusive and safe space, but on the other hand it’s also no man’s land, a two-dimensional surface with limits and encounters of space and volume. We are not quite sure what to think about the uneasy and at the same time elevated position of the small human body. I am excited and attracted by this combination, especially the palette made for these images – earthy, cold and powder-like at the same time. It creates a sense of short-lasting tranquility.
Human body seems to be the source of endless fascination for much of contemporary art, and yours is no exception. Over the years, though, you seem to approach it from so many different perspectives that range from religious to sexual and almost anatomically objective, but never overtly political or vulgar. To paraphrase Kundera, your art, like a good novel, asks questions and doesn’t provide answers. You don’t seem to go for the shock value even when you depict explicitly sexual scenes and when shock would be an easy effect to achieve.
Art that shocks has about 50% chance of being good, like any other kind of art. Shock is only interesting because of the topic, the narrative and the questions that are sometimes more easily opened and communicated to audiences through shock. If this kind of art is multilayered and questions important to many, then it speaks our language. However, to create relevant art, shock is not necessary and the same way it can help ask questions more directly, it can also harm art, if it’s disconnected from authentic and real topics.
Shock is not easy to do nowadays because it’s assumed and expected, so producing shock can be contrary to the very intention to shock.
Visual language is quite different from text or music which also directly reach audiences and their intellect and/or emotions. Visual language requires several levels of understanding and also knowledge about art, it asks viewers to know the past and used references, it’s always contextual.
My nature and character are not prone to shock, so that was never my interest. I always thought that I have to create works that I can really connect to and be satisfied with, both aesthetically and ethically. Yes, you are completely right when you say that my art asks questions but doesn’t assume or tries to give answers.
As far as the body is concerned, it’s an eternal inspiration of so many artists. It’s not possible to avoid it, because in creating art we can’t avoid ourselves, both the human exterior as well as the interior. It’s equally an obsession of scientists and artists, it’s a question for every individual, every community. It’s a question of mental health, politics, association, power, powerlessness, subjection/oppression, exaltation and freedom. That’s what our bodies are: our presence, our beauty, the wonder, our mind, awareness, our progress as a species, convictions, religion, spirituality… our rises and falls, our hard-wired fear of death, disappearance and being forgotten. The body is both a mirror of all that and the conduit for all these topics.
In my view, you seem to build your work like a spiral that becomes more abstract as it unfolds. When we look at The First Cut (2014) it seems to be thematically related to your installation The Chain (2014), and both of these are similar to Strange Waves (2016) insofar as they explore a set of common contrasts, such as people and how they interact with their surroundings, nature vs society, man vs animals, etc. Do you see these works as connected and if so, was it a conscious decision to explore these topics in different mediums, at different levels of abstraction and from different aesthetic points of view?
This is such a comprehensive question and my honest answer to all of it is: yes.
I had the idea to connect all these themes and make a series of exhibitions using different mediums: digital sculpture, sound, paper drawings and paintings. The themes emerge from one another and they include all that you’ve mentioned. I tried to make my execution as direct as possible without creating artificial space between the audience and the work by creating art that is too abstract. Exhibitions we are talking about have powerful narratives and they are exactly what narratives speak of. Their abstract aspects that you talk about are there only to open the doors of perception to both the audiences and me, to convey something that’s not easy to put into words and to set the narrative free from becoming concrete and banal. They really are built as a spiral that always puts man in the center, and around the center there is a vortex from which inseparable parts of human existence emerge.
Contemporary art that doesn’t contain a performative element but merely uses materials and slightly old-fashioned forms seems hermetic, elitist and unapproachable. Even though I greatly admire performance art, my artistic interests weren’t expressible in that medium, so I had to look for different modes of expression with each new idea, so that I can communicate as directly as possible. Space and medium are always my starting points and parts of the language I speak. On the other hand, directness and even comprehensibility are only partially important in art. The most important part is transcendence, everything that’s on the other side, that goes beyond our ability to understand, that which brings us into the deep field of feeling and individualistic thinking – that’s what makes the artwork full and complete. The new world that it creates is precisely why we like art, why we are sometimes afraid of it and why it sometimes repels us. The point of misunderstanding and rejection is at the same time a possibly point of connection.
As is probably obvious by now, I see a lot of unity and thoughtfulness in your work, but that may be only in the eyes of this beholder. How do you typically start a painting or a series of paintings? Your works contain such a wealth of references and direct quotes from Sarah Kane to Patti Smith. Where do you find your topics and how do you make your aesthetic choices?
Other artists that I admire are often my inspiration and sources of themes in my art. I often use the method of appropriation, meaning that I use techniques or elements from already known works to create something new that refers to the original work but also offers other levels of understanding, connections and interpretations.
I also make works that take symbolic representations, objects or elements of my own private life to create new worlds and contexts that seemingly don’t refer to anything we’ve seen before. This game helps me to open new fields of my own thinking and creation, because it wipes boundaries and brings us all together in dialogue.
You also teach at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade. How do you approach teaching creative expression and how do you feel about directions young artists are taking?
I have amazing students who are trying and giving their best every day to create their own voices and space for their art. It’s the only thing that an art professor can try to provide: enough interest and investment in the other, willingness to fight fears and prejudice, support for whatever the student is doing to make his/her own space, and private support to these young people as they are growing up, form their worldviews, experience disappointments and go through difficult periods.
The truest way to describe what I do is to say that I provide support and gentle direction. I try use my experience to help them to jump over or avoid some unnecessary obstacles that our society and the world put in front of them. My students need to take space for themselves, but also time and attention, to be noticed and to speak what they feel the need to speak about.
They have to find new ways to think objectively about themselves and their position in society, to think about their career path after graduation, to perfect their craft, to travel to places they know little about. All their ideas need to find ways to externalize themselves and we work on finding these ways together. It’s the aspect of community, that we are not alone. I am there for them, but they are also there for me. Even if that’s not always visible. I think that still, after 20 years I most sincerely enjoy working as a professor.
photo: Bojana Janjic
Some of the most prominent and most original contemporary artistic voices in Serbia are female. Historically as well, some of the country’s most prominent artists were women, such as Katarina Ivanovic, Milena Pavlovic Barili, Olga Jevrić, and perhaps most famous of all Marina Abramović. In a country often seen as patriarchal this seems like an interesting phenomenon and even a departure from the “boys’ club” norm of the international art scene that is only now being seriously questioned. In your opinion, how important is gender as an issue on the Serbian cultural scene?
Artists in Serbia are pretty invisible because very little money is invested in arts. That makes female artists even more invisible. Other than the money provided by the government, the art market is almost nonexistent. Because of the wars in our recent past and different political upheavals over the years, standards have changed and fallen – what’s left is worry for mere existence. On the other hand, those that have gotten reach during the war years and after 2000 are still worried for their position in politics and society and aren’t ready to invest their money in something as vague and indeterminate, something that’s neither supported nor promoted.
Gender is secondary in this sense. It’s important to understand that there is very little visibility and serious promotion of contemporary artistic production in Serbia and it’s mainly based on efforts of individual artists without support from the state and without funds. Artists are their own managers and they are increasing their visibility and form their own prices on the so called market that has no clear shape that such a market would need to have so that buyers too understand what is it that they are buying when they are buying a work of art.
It’s quite possible that the “boy’s club” does this better through association with the state and politics, but I find this topic too boring to get into, because whatever they’re doing, they are doing it individually to promote and sell their work. Whatever the efforts may be, they are made by individuals and they are not systemic.
Because women artists are already insignificant in this entire sea of irrelevance, they are maybe freer to come forth and swim in these murky waters. The stakes for them are so low, failure is something they’re already contemplating, they are aware of their position in society and they know that they are unprotected - from the basic things like family violence and murder, all the way to their professional lives. Being aware of this makes you braver, having in mind Nietzsche’s quote that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Women in arts are now strong, the time of horror and insecurity is their time, it’s what they’ve been living with their whole lives, since the first time they’re coming home after dark, on foot, penniless from their first youthful going out.
Once all these above-mentioned collateral circumstances are changed, only then it will be clearer where women stand in the arts in Serbia. Until then, I have the impression that all Serbian artists, men and women alike, try to stick together around a kind of socialist utopia of equality and common fight.
Photo: Bojana Janjic
