AVATARIZATION

Salon of Contemporary Applied Art of the Museum of Applied Art

Opening of the exhibition: Thursday, June 8, 2023 at 7 p. m.

The exhibition will be opened by: Svetlana Jovičić, Art Historian

Curator: Bojana Popović

Author of the text in the exhibition catalog: Svetlana Jovičić

Graphic design: Dejana Cvetković

Organizer: Museum of Applied Art

 

The existence of electronic avatars is a feature of the times in which we live. Artist Daliborka Đurić also takes part in this universal avatarization – in her own way.

The audience is presented with eight new works, large in size. They are made of coarse painter’s canvas and fine muslin, and with the application of the most diverse old and new techniques of working with textiles: dyeing with natural means (turmeric, coffee), sewing, quilting, tearing, appliqué, hand and machine embroidery, ArtMatic Designer program, digital printing, etc. The names of the works indicate the source of inspiration. A Cloak, Belts, Crowns, Dress and Girls with Mobile Phones refer to the Serbian Middle Ages, whose clothing and ornamentation the author sees as the starting point of a collective identity. The works Avatarization, Put it in a Box / Inbox and Menu are a kind of “game” created “in cooperation” with the ArtMatic Designer software, which was tasked with reshaping an ornament from ancient times. The symbiosis of human and algorithmic inventiveness and wit is evidenced by the last creation prepared for the exhibition – the video work of the same name, created with the help of the “technical support” of digital artist Danko Đurić.

Svetlana Jovičić, who has been following Daliborka Đurić’s work and writing about it for a long time, wrote the text for the catalog. Interpreting conceptually and technically complex works created for the exhibition in the Salon of Contemporary Applied Art, she has pointed out the constants in the artist’s work – postmodernist experimentation with tradition and fascination with modern technological achievements. Jovičić summarizes: “Deriving from both inexhaustible resources – equally attached to her heritage and bent over the screen image, Daliborka Đurić continuously builds, revises and rouses her own and our spiritual and artistic identities.”

Daliborka Đurić (b. 1972, Belgrade), following her Secondary School for Design and Industrial Design (Textile Design Department, 1988–1991) education, graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts and Design, University of Belgrade (Department of Textiles, subject: Tapestry, 1997). She completed her post-graduate studies at the same university, mentored by Professor Jadranka Simonović, with the theme Figuration in the Area of Tapestry (2003). She has been an ULUPUDS (Applied Artist and Designer Association of Serbia) member since 1997.

The artistic work of Daliborka Đurić is based on reading, studying and interpreting textile forms, ideas and expressions from the past and their visual and meaningful transposition into new contents and forms, through the prism of the feminine, social and phenomenological.

The artist’s works are in the Museum of Applied Art in Belgrade, the State Museum of Majdanek (Paṅstwowe Muzeum na Majdanek), in Lublin, Poland, in the collection of the Cultural Center of Jagodina, as well as in the private collections of Aleksandra Stratimirović and Dragan Popović.

Author of the photographs: Dragana Udovičić