“The Starving Bureaucrat” ▪︎ Adrian Melis and Đeji Hadrović ▪︎ Opening of the 60th October Salon

In his work, Melis addresses issues like labor conditions, inefficiency, and unproductivity from a sociopolitical and artistic perspective. In most cases, he uses his own work to create a platform for others to express, in an ironic, absurd, and humorous way, their concerns about the relationship between art and labour.

Within the “Hope is a Discipline” concept, Melis presents this work in collaboration with Slovenian artist Đejmi Hadrović, addressing what they called “a performance within a performance.” The work is based on the topic of unpaid artistic labor in the political and economic system of contemporary capitalist societies.

In “The Starving Bureaucrat” Melis’s invisible performance consists of inviting Dejmi Hadrovic, a Slovenian artist and colleague to take part with him in the festival. Following the communication with the curatorial team, they both succeeded in making the festival pay for all things any artist deserves, traveling, accommodation, artist fee and per diem, and even the possibility of presenting her work by using Melis’s place. During the performance, Melis won’t be an active part of it, instead, Đejmi will present her own personal approach to the topic of “starving artists” by addressing the relationship between artists and institutions in a capitalist society such as unpaid work, invisible and side jobs to survive the lack of opportunities.

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Adrian Melis Sosa (Havana, Cuba, 1985) is a multidisciplinary artist, based in Cuba and Europe. Between 2005 and 2010, Melis studied at the University of Arts in Havana. He is a former resident of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten of Amsterdam (2014/2015). He is currently teaching at Berlin Art Institute. He has exhibited in several museums and institutions including, among others, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Wiels, Brussels; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Pinchuk Art Center, Kyiv; Pori Art Museum, Pori; De Appel Center, Amsterdam; Queens Museum, New York, and the 10th Shanghai Biennial. Since 2010 he is represented by ADN Galería, Barcelona, where his solo exhibitions in 2012 and 2013 were awarded the “Art Nou” Award by the Association of Galleries Barcelona and the GAC award (MACBA) for Best Exhibition in a Private Gallery, respectively. In the year 2023 Melis was granted the CIFO awards for latinoamerican artists. His work is in private and public collections, including LENTOS Museum, Linz; Pori Art Museum, Finland; MAS Santander, Spain; MACBA Barcelona; Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia, Spain; Collection Alain Servais, Belgium; Collection Lemaître; Collection A. de Galbert, France and Collection Teixeira de Freitas, Portugal.