What can we possibly portray in the split second we’re lit by the spotlight? What is powerful enough to seize the attention of the anonymous masses, who dispense validation in the form of likes? A Stoic quote, ripped from context and hurled into the manosphere? A morbid collage of everyday scenes of questionable aesthetic value and remnants of the merciless butchering of the Serbian (and all other) languages? Perhaps. But somewhere in that tangled undergrowth lies another paradox born of cognitive dissonance: popularity through anonymity. We don’t crave a heart – we crave a flame. Recognition, not acquaintance. The bestial humanity that Rodin once condemned now offers before the camera not just its own nudity, but the very nakedness of self. Life has become pornography. Welcome to the lounge. A burning peach longs for an eggplant. If all goes according to plan, it’ll all catch fire. If not – if validation never comes – we’ll smear on clown makeup and prepare for crucifixion. The skull is no longer a memento mori; it’s a symbol of dying from shame – because actual death no longer affects anyone.

If Rodin were alive and had not succumbed to attention deficit disorder by turning up in our backyard, he and Matić could engage in a reasoned discussion about the world’s need for artists and art. What the great predecessor overlooks is that leftovers can still be made into a meal. If there is anything left of religiosity, it is the duty of the full to feed the hungry. To use faded, worn-out symbols as the foundation – not just for critique, but for irony, wit, and ambivalent reflection on what’s happening to all of us, to varying degrees – is the ultimate act of rebellion against the raging bull that is the feed. The digital readymade, transferred from the screen to the third dimension, is a war, not a pact. A refusal to reduce ourselves to the absurd.

 From the text Eros and Thanatos in the Digital Desert by MIlica Grujić

Curator: Mia David