Exchange program between macLYON and the Cultural Center of Belgrade and the October Salon Collection

Cultural Center Belgrade invites you to attend the screening of films by Jasmina Cibic and Jesper Just, as well as a talk with the artists, which will be moderated by Matthieu Lelievre, one of the curators of the 60th October Salon and curator of the Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon.

The two films are co-produced by the Museum of contemporary art in Lyon and coincide with the monographic exhibitions of London-based Slovenian artist Jasmina Cibic in 2021 and Danish artist Jesper Just, who lives between New York and Berlin, in 2023, as well as to meet the artists and learn more about their artistic practices.

Jesper Just exhibited at the 60th October Salon within the concept of Aesthetics of Encounters, and Jasmina Cibic participated in the 54th October Salon and her work is in the October Salon Collection.

Every year, the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, in collaboration with the major Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Art, produces new works that are sometimes becoming new acquisitions for its collection, but the creation of a film is a very special moment that takes place sometimes over a period of several years, during which many different professions come together. These complex production projects enable many institutions, museums and production agencies to develop new forms of collaboration.

This session will provide an opportunity to discuss with artists, curators and programmers the production and curatorial process of The Gift and INTERFEARS, co-produced, presented and acquired by the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon.

More about the works:

Jasmina Cibic, The Gift, 2021
Originally three channel video, 27 minutes 56 seconds
Collection of macLYON
Courtesy the artist

For Jasmina Cibic, every film project sees this artist researcher delving into the archives, the accounts recorded there as well as the silences, in order to reveal the attitudes of all forms of power – whether state, government, party political or diplomatic – towards the arts.
For the exhibition Stagecraft in 2021, Jasmina Cibic has brought together several years of research into political gifting of culture, which she unravels as the centrefold of the exhibition at macLYON in her film The Gift. This film features several emblematic buildings, including the French Communist Party Headquarters in Paris, the Palace of Nations in Geneva, the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw and Mount Buzludzha in Bulgaria, all of which, in their collections and architecture, constitute gifts in their own right and have a profoundly established artistic vocabulary entirely at the service of political dramaturgy.
This project by Jasmina Cibic is part of her research into the notion of soft power, which was the basis of her exhibition for the Slovenian pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale.
The Gift: Co-commissioned and co-produced by macLYON; FLAMIN − Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network with funding from Arts Council England and steirischer herbst ‘19; co-producers Waddington Studios London. Supported by Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź; Cooper Gallery DJCAD, University of Dundee; Northern Film School; UGM Maribor Art Gallery; United Nations, Geneva; Espace Niemeyer, Paris and Palace of Youth, Warsaw.

Jesper Just, Interfears, 2023
Film, 16 minutes
Collection of macLYON
Courtesy the artist

Jesper Just’s works are, more often than not, large, aesthetic, sculptural video installations with an enigmatic and immersive quality, in which the viewer is invited to move around. The almost surreal, ambiguous trajectories and encounters of his figures, which transcend the usual codes and stereotypes are an enthralling experience. Although his works have a cinematic quality, they diverge from film in their rhythm and the artist’s tendency to shift from narrative to total experience. In his recent productions, Jesper Just has created ecosystems that combine technology, the body and nature, using for example, electrodes connected to dancers’ bodies, aquaponic systems, and networks of tubes, cables and LED screen panels. Technology and nature converge and merge in what the artist himself calls a techno-poetics.
For his collaboration with the macLYON in 2023,, macLYON supported the production of INTERFEARS, a new film featuring the emotional topography of Matt Dillon (Outsiders, Rusty James, Singles, Sexcrimes, There’s Something About Mary, Collision, The House that Jack Built… ) captured by an MRI scanner during a soliloquy.

More about the Collection macLYON

Partner in the program: Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon