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 Foreign Visions 

FOREIGN VISIONS

Elke Schwab

New positions of Macedonian and Russian artists

Two artists from Macedonia in a dialogue with two artists from Russia in the German capital Berlin  - with this project the young Republic of Macedonia underlines its presence at the international art scene.

Jovan Balov lives in Berlin, his compatriot Novica Trajkovski lives  in Skopje. Their common project  "Duel" is a dialogue by the means of painting, photography and video art. In the works of  Trajkovski, there is dominating the image of the cross  as a reflection about the political situation in his country.  It is his first big show in Germany. In his paintings, Jovan Balov combines the sculptures of  Karl Friedrich Schinkel on the Schloßbrücke in Berlin with neoclassic  tissue an he confronts them with big photography’s of macedonian soldiers posing as warriors who are wearing makes.

Genia Chef and Olga Tobreluts are from Russia. Genia Chef lives in Berlin, Olga Tobreluts in Sankt Petersburg. The works of Tobreluts are computer generated modifications of antique helenistic sculptures which, through digital treatment become modern heroes.  She is a  representative of the Novaja Akademija in St.Petersburg.

Also,  Genia Chef is in close contact to this art group. His triptych "Millennium" and an Installation of three-dimensional  computer-panoramas are digital interpretations of the  classical suet  "Danse de la Mort".

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“Foreign Visions” in Museum of Contemporary Art - Extremes that Create Aesthetic Situation

Jasna Frangovska

 (Makedonija Denes, 25.03.2003) - The joint exhibition of artworks by Novica Trajkovski and Jovan Balov from Macedonia and Olga Torbeluc and Genia Sef from Russia was recently successfully displayed in the Palace of Lions in Berlin -
This exhibition, which included the artworks of two Macedonian and two Russian artists, is an unusual merger of genre and thematically different works, which create an exceptional unity. Russian artist Genia Chef, who lives in Berlin, and is a representative of the movement new academism, which is exceptionally influential in Russia and abroad, came to Skopje for Monday evening’s opening of exhibition “Foreign Visions”.

“I think that the Museum is a great space for this setting. I like director Aleksiev, who is very open for different experiments, and is a representative of the new Macedonian culture that is open towards the world, but which at the same time nurtures a respect for its ethnographic roots. I think that this is very significant. When I came and saw the big building of the Macedonian National Theatre, it seemed as if it did not fit with the environment, the beautiful poetic architecture of the mountains, which mostly has a Mediterranean character. Each country has to have contacts with its surrounding, but should not forget its own roots at the same time. For example, the Berlin public accepted the works by Novica as authentic Macedonian art, because it is different, its own, very special. It is an interesting contrast with the digital works by Olga, and these extremes make the aesthetic situation of the exhibition more fierce”, Sef explains.

His works are a type of multi-layer holograms- computer-processed photographs, at which the aesthetics of classicism is felt.

“I belong to the movement new academism. It is a group of artists, who are connected to tradition, but at the same time use new instruments for expression of that tradition”. He states that his work is some new type of renaissance in art, which brings the basic principles of beauty and aesthetics back in the focus of attention