In his latest project, Gjorgje Jovanovik has continued to explore the forms of social structures, created in a particular transitional period, an unjustifiably long and deeply stuck process, with confusing ideological products. The newly-developed social integrity unites elements that do not promise long-term sustainability. Jovanovik, with an approach verging on deconstruction and through humour, bares the extended alienating power of the uncritically imported consumerism, the end results of which are his confused hero (the casual passer-by, the fellow citizen) and the ambiance in which he moves.  

In the process of creating the project Inventions for You, Wonderful People! Jovanovik interviewed a number of inventive ‘passers-by' and used their ideas, securing a participatory character for his end result. With the twelve ‘inventions' he solved 12 Herculean problems and tried to ‘alleviate' the lives of his fellow citizens. He invites us to identify with the image he has of us and of our daily rituals. His products, promoted in the spirit of the locally developed teleshop culture, are economic and precise tools with character and address issues concerning dignity and self-respect. His cheerful prototype of his fellow citizen is a modest, but well-equipped passer-by with a strictly designated path. Jovanovik refuses to believe that we will reconcile with the newly-imposed identity. His portrait of the casual passer-by through the transitional maze has his sympathy, even though in an artistically burlesque form. He carefully delineates the ‘culprit' of our time—the alienating power of the globalised product, whereas the states in the urban margins are just a distorted image (on account of errors in translation)   of the ‘illness' of our civilisation. It seems that his resourceful heroes maintained their ability to change and transform, and patiently wait for a stronger impulse to take them out of the trance of everyday ritual.

Directing his action towards the ‘market product' as the key element of alienation, which, according to Baudrillard, is the ‘very structure of market society', Jovanovik himself produces non-market products, with flaws and character.

Mira Gakina

Video:

Aplauznik, 35'', 2014

Kit for Times of Crisis, , 34‘', 2014

Multifunctional Rucksack for Protests, 1' 04”, 2014

The Curse Book, 33”, 2014

The Multipurpose Suit, 1' 20”, 2014

The Antidepressant Television Covers, 51”, 2014