Landscape Experience Project by Robert Jankuloski and Monika Moteska
Thursday, April 17th from 6 to 9 pm: Reception for Artists Robert Jankuloski and Monika Moteska presenting project Landscape Experience Project at the Macedonian Pavilion, 59. Venice Art Biennale
LANDSCAPE EXPERIENCE – THE BANALITY OF EVIL: MONIKA MOTESKA & ROBERT JANKULOSKI
dr Sanja Kojić Mladenov
Most evil is committed by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.
(Hannah Arendt)
The artistic research of Monika Moteska and Robert Jankuloski, with its narrative, belongs to a wide field of artistic expressions that give importance to the culture of memory. Present for several decades through various theoretical, scientific, artistic and cultural practices, the culture of memory is increasingly important not only in constituting history “written by winners”, its mythologising and criticism, but also in the context of building personal and collective identities – gender, racial, ethnic, religious, social and others… Actualised especially during critical socio-political periods, it is used for interdisciplinary examination and consideration of memories of traumatic phenomena and relationships, sometimes suppressed from social reality and the media environment. As collective identities are built through the diverse voices of witnesses, remembering traumatic experiences serve as a condition for identity development, and according to theorist Dalia Ofer, a narrative that interprets traumatic experiences can be understood as a “health narrative”.
Emphasizing the importance of every factor in historical processes, the authors introduce the landscape into the concept of the exhibition at the Venice Biennale, as an interlocutor of artistic work, that is, a silent witness to the socio-political, social, economic and cultural history of their own environment. Monika and Robert’s approach to one of the basic themes in art history, such as landscape, is not imbued with the idea of enjoyment and presentation of its aesthetic, natural characteristics, as was common in the past, but also today with the expansion of digital camera. Moreover, the goal is not to conquer or intervene within the landscape, as is done in land art and other avant-garde practices. Namely, it is more a process of finding, analysing and recording the places of its changes, perceiving inorganic/atypical situations as silent bearers of traces of the past and forgotten or untold traumatic/painful stories, in the spirit of neo-conceptual and neo-contextual contemporary media art.
The concept of the exhibition works through the interrelation of the artistic practice of each of the authors who, regardless of the differences and specifics of personal discourses, harmonize in questioning the common value field connected by the concept of landscape experience. It is a question of researching the archaeology of space, the stratification of abandoned and forgotten landscapes within the collective cultural remembrance/memory and reviving the “presence of the absent”. The relationships of life and death, beautiful and ugly, healthy and poisonous, form the basis of the authors’ critical approach, topics they both have previously dealt with in different but close ways.
The questions they ask are directly focused on the connection of environmental issues, with corporate imperialism, gender perspectives, theses on natives, collective identities and the importance of decolonization of not only history but also nature. They discuss power relations in society and the dangers of fighting each other through mindless wars (whether explicit or implicit, real or psychological, physical or chemical) and the conquest of nature through increasingly aggressive neoliberal exploitation and misuse of basic resources. They explore the issues of human freedoms, responsibilities and consequences of their actions, and the issue of the survival of humanity as a value of modern society. They shed light on the accumulated problems, pointing out the importance of establishing a new order that would provide the possibility of overcoming the anthropocentric view on the world, thus questioning the Anthropocene, the presumed new epoch of the planet Earth.
The geopolitical context from which they start is visible in their previous professional practice. Through his many years of research, Robert Jankuloski has found and collected many old photographs, on the basis of which he founded the Macedonian Centre for Photography in Skopje, where Monika Moteska is also actively involved. The preservation of valuable historical and artistic material also aims to shed light on the unpredictable past. (As it is written on a medieval apocrypha from a Macedonian monastery – The present is here, The future is unknown, The past is the most unpredictable). Cycles of photographs by Robert Jankuloski, such as Wounded Landscapes (since 2015), Remains of Memory (2014) or World War I – Remembering (2020), show places and objects immersed in history.
Throughout its history, the Balkans have been the scene of struggles to seize territory, kill, rob and rape. Due to its historical diversity and communities of Christian, Muslim and Jewish culture, as well as its specific crossroads of East and West, North and South, it is perceived in international politics as the periphery of Europe and a place of potential conflicts. The recent wars of the 1990s, which followed the brutal dissolution of Yugoslavia (SFRY), left their mark through the militarization of states and society, nationalism, genocide, population migration, international sanctions, hyperinflation, economic poverty, bombing, too long a transition… How much of the experience of war remains present in the memory of the country and its inhabitants, how much the landscape remembers, how much of the violence and evil are transmitted genetically, through memory to all of us, how much cultural codes, archetypes and stereotypes follow us, and whether war remains permanently present in the air of the country in which our ancestors and friends are buried, question the artists, Monika Moteska and Robert Jankulosti through their concept.
Through her previous practice, Monika Moteska has researched the fundamental rapports in life, such as the question of life and death, man and nature, time and space, through various visual media. With her earlier installations such as Breathing Below (2018), premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Novi Sad or Taxidermy of Insects (2018), she explores the process of archiving and attitudes towards memory through the ontological need of people to work on and preserve (taxidermize) their results for eternity.
The Choir of Helmets, a multimedia installation constructed through the collection of historical artifacts, military helmets from the First and Second World Wars, and the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, also points to the author’s intention to awaken memories, point to the intertwining history of Europe and underline the question of the absurdity of war. In this case, the segment of history is military equipment from various sources (German, Italian, French, Serbian, Bulgarian, JNA …), found in antique shops and on the dumping grounds of North Macedonia and its surroundings. Rusty, cracked, pierced helmets, covered with human hair (in a way they taxidermize them), to make them more humane, tactile, subtle and closer to those who wore them, people who are lost.
The installation is complemented by a monumental video projection of pelivans (Persian: heroes) who perform a symbolic dance, a type of choreography that serves as a warm-up before the fight. These are wrestlers who came to the territory of today’s North Macedonia, Kosovo and southern Serbia with the Turkish conquerors in the 15th century, and entered the folk tradition as symbols of strength, heroism and masculinity. Shiny bodies, naked to the waist, intensely oiled to glide under rival hands, in leather pants, symbolize life, joy and excitement and represent a contrast to the “still life” composed of helmets. The installation of helmets entitled “The landscape of death” that occupies the floor of the exhibition space of the palace in Venice, with the pelivan dance on a video projection, is a continuation of the authors’ need to analyse the issue of immortality and infinity, alluding to famous historical themes such as Memento mori and Danse Macabre, to the omnipresence of death, the transience and fragility of life and the futility of fame, power and success. On the other hand, they emphasize the patriarchy of a culture that throughout history raises symbols of war and violence as the highest values of society. Recalling the recent traumas and sufferings in the region, which are accompanied by processes of intensified re-traditionalization, re-patriarchization and clericalization of societies.
The landscape experience also relates to the mapping of certain historical sites, natural landscapes damaged by war scars, objects in the form of memorials or bunkers that testify to the war or much more subtle cuts and crevices, which indicate former underground trenches, hiding places and graves of soldiers… and silence, the earth as a silent witness to human suffering. But in addition to that, they also reveal man’s need to rule over nature and natural resources, to use them mercilessly for the sake of accumulating his own capital. Namely, the new concept for the exhibition at the Venice Biennale is a continuation of the works New Landscapes – Archives of Reality (2021) by Robert Jankuloski and Embroidered in Stone, Crucifixion (2020) by Monika Moteska, created during her stay in Čačak, Serbia and research of abandoned factories, buildings which have lost their function due to too long a social transition and which, as a remnant of human intervention, have been left to further natural processes. This time, they are interested in the old mines in North Macedonia, which have been intensively disturbing the natural landscape for decades, leaving it completely polluted and toxic for future generations. In that way, they formed a unique contrast within the concept of the exhibition, but also with the installation itself. In contrast to war that aggressively and loudly leads to mass killings of people in “one moment”, toxic soil kills quietly, almost invisibly and slowly.
The monumental photographs of the poisonous landscape, although they have a documentary role, belong to the conceptualized photographic expression of Robert Jankuloski and Monika Moteska, who approach contemporary social themes through engaged artistic language. The sites whose importance the authors emphasize are the abandoned Lojane mine of arsenic, antimony and chrome near Kumanovo, then the landscape around Tabanovce where the mined ore was transported by wagons, the Allshar mine and the marble mine near Prilep where detonations hit stone blocks every day. The Lojane mine was active from 1923 to 1979, first under the control of an Italian company, then another company under the occupation, and after the Second World War, a Yugoslav one (based in present-day Serbia), until its closure, probably for economic reasons (inability to export ore due to too high a concentration of arsenic, which was contrary to environmental laws). Frequent changes of ownership again emphasize colonial practices, as in the case of war conflicts. After the suspension of work, the natural landscape remained abandoned and devastated, as a dead place (which is also mentioned in scientific research). Toxic soil of intense orange-red colour slowly pollutes everything around it. The plants dry up and stop growing, while the poison spreads through the natural environment. At the same time, in the immediate vicinity, there is a school 100m away, in the yard of which children are playing today, while “no one is doing anything about it”, the authors emphasize.
Large photographs of landscapes from abandoned mines and a video installation with helmets and a game of pelivans are complimentary to this video projection that intersects the whole concept of the Landscape Experience exhibition. It connects the previous artistic experience of both authors, the frames from all the locations, the theme of war and toxic suffering, the issue of the environment and man, violence and peace. In the thematic dialogue of the video sequence, along with the performative appearance of the authors themselves, the sound also plays a crucial part through the alternating appearance of metal helmets hitting each other and the laughter of children heard in the distance, future generations to whom we leave our own (non)deeds. With their video artwork, Monika Moteska and Robert Jankuloski create a certain time-space and intergenerational line which indicates the breadth of the critical artistic concept and thinking about possible alternatives that lie ahead.
Contrary to the difficult topic, the author’s aspiration is to present everything in a beautified way and on the verge of kitsch. The beauty of the landscape is overemphasized and without knowing the socio-historical context, the scenes seem idealised and desirable to the observer at first glance, as highly artistically aestheticized objects. Or, like pictures in the mass media, on social networks that provide a false picture of everyday activities and a happy life. The question of dehumanisation of the modern subject lies not in recognising the difference between fact and fiction (abolition of the reality of experience) and the difference between correct and false (abolition of norms of thought), which makes it susceptible to destructive manipulations and passivation of critical thinking. The authors connect the problematisation of beauty in art with the dichotomy of good and evil, true and false, credible and distorted in art and social reality.
Monika Moteska and Robert Jankuloski address modern society and raise the question of the collective attitude not only towards historical memory, as it is presented in modern media and narratives, but also of the social power relations that lead to trauma and poisoning, both natural and human. It is a critical use of landscape in contemporary art practice which the authors bring to our attention, places of nature’s devastation by man, whether it is war or excavation of mineral resources, and calls into question the collective picture of past, present and future. They critically look at history through the human need to subdue and tame nature, which is related to the thesis of the banality of evil by Hannah Arendt (in her work Eichmann in Jerusalem, 1963), that the greatest evil was not committed by those who are evil by nature, sociopaths, fanatics, but those who only deeply lack self-conscious thinking and reasoning, obedient people who unconditionally obey the hierarchical structures, laws and institutions of the state of totalitarian systems, who transfer complicity without personal responsibility to the whole society.
THE PARADOXALITY OF HUMANITY
Ana Frangovska
Theorizing
“Man is the only being who consciously refers to its existence”, and in the context of the philosophy of existence if we continue with Sartre’s thinking about human freedom in terms of personal choice, choosing opportunities and taking responsibility for events and the risk to human existence, the conclusion or contradiction of the meaninglessness or absurdity of human existence is drawn, which is often confirmed in many examples throughout the history of mankind.
An essential continuity to the theory of existentialism and its absurdity is the question of relevance of the opposition of GOOD versus EVIL. Numerous scientists, philosophers, theorists, theologians, psychologists, biologists have tried to get into the essence of this dichotomy and whether we actually carry both parts of the “apple” within us by the nature of our existence. Which side of the bivalent whole will prevail depends on the mental and psychophysical composition of our mind, but also to a large extent on the environment, i.e. on the socio-political system that consciously or unconsciously bridges the “cable” and from the moral and ethical new-born individuals creates “monsters” ready to destroy, kill, fight, commit genocide. “Man first exists, meets himself, ascends into the world – and then defines himself.” On the other hand, this definition of oneself, if in confrontation with the world surrounding one, projects the concept of the absurdity of existence.
Another platform that is crucially associated to the occasion for this essay is the coinage of “paradoxical ugliness” which refers to the aesthetics of the ugly, the evil, the unpleasant. Aesthetics as a word, in its etymology is associated with beauty and pleasant feelings. The opposition to the beautiful is the ugly, which as an aesthetic category according to the dichotomy, would cause unpleasant feelings, pain, suffering, and as an aesthetic value would be worthless and unimportant. But in contemporary art and contemporary aesthetics this is not the case i.e., when Karl Rosenkrantz gives a special place to the aesthetics of the ugly as a separate value and meaning that celebrates the “beauty” of, let’s not use the word ugly, but the different autonomous. Hence it does not deal with pure formality but with deeper conceptual and intellectual meanings. “We cannot see beauty as innocent,” writes the philosopher Kathleen Marie Higgins, when “the sublime radiance of a mushroom accompanies moral evil.” Debates gain strength as the world changes, while the meanings “beautiful” and “ugly” slip and move. Victor Hugo offered an interesting view of ugliness when he wrote that “beautiful” is “only the form considered in its simplest aspect”, while “ugly” is “a detail of the great whole that escapes us and is in harmony, not with man, but with all creation.”
Trauma and wounded landscapes; for “Landscape Experience”
If ghosts unsettle time, then landscape measures time. Landscape is a record of time––it holds history and “remembers” it materially.
–– Patricia Keller, Ghostly Landscapes
The initial reflections on the essential theoretical foundations of the relation existence, absurdity, good-evil, beautiful-ugly… are an introduction to the very complex visual and conceptual context of the multimedia project “Landscape Experience” by Robert Jankuloski and Monika Moteska, national representative to the 59th Venice Biennale. “Landscape
Experience” includes multiple media platforms such as video installations, objects and photos. Abandoned, devastated and wounded landscapes, placed in a new context, with new layers of meaningful and discursive transcription are the foundation of the project. In their work so far, these two authors in numerous independent projects, have actualised the issue of “injured landscapes” through aesthetics and poetics of beauty in various ways all the while trying to express their revolt and cry against the social irresponsibility and hegemonic policies of the government that don’t concern themselves with the public good but instead use the parameters of the ugly, the inhuman, the evil, the envious, the tasteless, they destroy nature, the environment, the living world, pollute the air, but also kill, create wars or conceive mechanisms and enable mass genocide. Shared experiences of vulnerability are synonymous with everyday reality and a method of aesthetic expression.
The project “Landscape Experience” can be divided into three conceptual wholes. One consists of photographs of “toxic landscapes”, the second is a video art installation consisting of a video and a floor installation of “ready-made” objects and the third is an independent work with moving images.
1.
The photographs, which can be defined as documentary photography, depict a beautiful and abandoned geopolitical region on the border with Serbia, which used to have arsenic, antimony and chromium mines that have not been operational for a long time. Now those areas are deserted and desolate, in some places there are still embankments with residues of arsenic sulphite and antimony that are dispersed by natural and climatic conditions. The very colour of this ore, orange-red, creates magical and surreal landscape creations, which are likable and seem otherworldly, on the other hand, they are silent witnesses to “stories that must not be told.” Their discursiveness lies in the toxicity and destructive power of that beauty to the health of people and animals as well as the destruction of the environment. In the immediate vicinity of these abandoned mines there is a school, where children attend classes and one can often hear chatter in the distance. According to the world list of dangerous substances, arsenic is at the top in terms of toxicity to humans. Prolonged exposure has severe consequences to people’s health, often with a tragic epilogue. That is why arsenic is named the silent and invisible killer. Centuries ago, it was used as medicine, but also as an ideal poison. Drinking water in this region has 100 times more arsenic than allowed in its composition and that is the basis of the opposition of the “milk of dreams”. The lack of official data and parameters, as well as the failure of the competent authorities to take measures, indicate the devastating level of awareness and responsibility of the social mechanisms and the corrupt importance and disregard of the humanistic aspect before the capitalist one. These toxic and “wounded landscapes” become ruins of human greed and cause existential debris. The materiality of the landscape becomes the materialisation of death, so the formal aesthetics – beauty opposes the painful and deviant conceptual ugliness.
2.
In the second work, in addition to the plasticity of the “transformed landscape panopticons”, the authors introduce the body – the man (or its allusion) as a symbol of power, but also as a fragile and easily overcome force. This conceptual connection inaugurates a unique form of intimacy, closeness and attachment to something historically harmful and materially toxic. The video artwork through body play, rhythm, beat, sound, repetition processes the discourse of pelivanism, a martial art characteristic of the Balkan region, which is a symbol of perseverance, heroism, tradition, passed down from generation to generation, carrying the ideology of strength and winning, but at the same time not hurting, but protecting. The naked body of the pelivans becomes a synonym for beauty, for an ancient male body. The visual dynamics and the powerful repetitive sound arrangement contribute to stimulating the recipient’s meditation and metaphysicality, and the aesthetically beautiful pre-combat performance turns into a dance full of life and energy. In contrast to this highly vertical composition of the video, which abounds of existential fullness, on the floor, in front of this video, rises an imaginary landscape – a floor installation consisting of 230 transformed military helmets. It is a spatial agglomeration of ready-made helmets that once had their utilitarianism and application to protect someone’s head (in the wars throughout the region from the recent and distant past) on which artistic intervention was performed. In fact, the authors apply human hair to them, a process through which these ready-made objects acquire an inverse connotation, and the once functional helmets now become dysfunctional and a testimony to new bodies – “new humanized objects”, which unfortunately no longer protect, but become an allusion to all lives lost. This installation contains many layered levels of contextuality, from general discourses on life and death and changing their positions, touching on the aspects of the power of politics and its influence on human destinies and struggle for existence, to the absurdity of war and evil.
3.
In the third work – the video object, Jankuloski-Moteska perform a visual narration related to the injured landscapes, and the absence/presence of man in them. To connect this artistic compilation of moving images, they filmed in tree locations (some already appearing in the previous two conceptual wholes), which have their analogy in the general context of the absurdity of existence, linking and uniting the other two parts. One location is the antimony and arsenic mines on the outskirts of our country. The already elaborate “space” orange-red landscapes, which were the subject of interest predominantly in the photographic cycle, are deepened here through the view of the video camera, and the conceptual basis for poisoning is upgraded and dramatized by including a human figure, in which they break the harmony of that toxic area. Through the spatial material playfulness of their presence and absence, the figures, together with the helmets that are being rolled downhill those arsenic sediments, become direct visualization of the many victims of these landscapes, the unobtrusive sound, further increases the “silent” grief and nausea of the recipient of this conceptual discourse.
The second landscape inspiration is Markovi Kuli or Marko’s Towers, a beautiful natural granite complex that with its monumentality and variety of denuded forms causes aesthetic sensation and admiration, as if it were a metaphysical landscape. The authors pay attention to the materiality of space, and transform this landscape into a place of “residual vulnerability”, physical and environmental exposure to associative remnants of war that allows artistic articulation of harmful but also constitutive forms of intimacy and action. In the metaphysical and meditative beauty of this landscape, traces of human existence suddenly begin to appear, incorporated through the materialization of death. The materiality of the landscape is complemented by a performative act of rolling helmets downhill as a symbol of severed heads in many absurd wars.
“The need to fit placeless memories into an imagined or imaginary place with the search for moral bearings and a point of view.”
The frames showing the marble mines are the third location where the most beautiful white marble from Prilep is extracted. This are places of trauma, direct devastation and injury to nature. The tectonic disturbances, stratigraphic changes, and excruciating sounds coming from the “uprooting of the landscape” represent places of remembrance, allusive historical stratification and affective sedimentation of violence now and in the past. These frames generally indicated a traumatic experience that could disperse in time and space, pervading the tangled relationships between places and people.
This video artwork as a whole is a visual manipulation of an expressive act with sub-contexts with explicit and transferable power of expression, which is achieved with the repetitiveness, transitions, and intensity of moving images, with the changing frames of the wide-angle display of the action and focusing on the unobtrusive natural and partitive symbolic sound of ‘rolling’ of the helmets and the crash of the marble blocks falling, for even more pronounced affectivity…
What does it mean to place the wounded landscape as an archive of historical injuries and how does this poetics of spatial testimony function as a means of geopolitical critique? – or In lieu of a conclusion
The “Landscape Experience” project deals predominantly with the causes and absurdities of human existence, with the beautiful and the ugly, with the crisis of the spirit, but it also deals with the dominance of capital, colonial policies, ideologies and technology that influence the disfigurement of the balance of man, wildlife and the natural environment in the ecosystem. This multinational trans-tactical project of the Jankuloski-Moteska tandem in a critical-discursive way call attention to the dangers that lurk if serious systemic steps are not taken to overcome the greatest challenges of the Anthropocene, which are a tax on capitalism and government policies, the uncontrolled misuse of the natural resources of the planet Earth in the form of mindless wars (explicit or implicit, real or psychological, physical or chemical) in the name of someone’s ideals, in which we are all victims, and most of all the youngest, the innocent and the idealists. Can the beautiful be at the same time insidiously ugly, can the aesthetic become a servant of evil, but with the intention of finding the right path to transform into a warning? All these questions, by re-examining the thesis of the banality of evil, are disposed in the “Landscape Experience” project.
Finally, interpreting a verse from a song by Frank Zappa, we can conclude that “the ugliest part of the human body is not the nose or fingers, but the ‘brain’” which leads to the paradox of human existence.
Monika MOTESKA
Born in Prilep, Macedonia in 1971. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts – Painting Department in Skopje in 1996. She earned her Master’s Degree at the same faculty. Moteska works in painting, drawing, photography, video and installations.
She has held 23 solo exhibitions in: Skopje, Vienna, Venice, Rijeka, Prilep, Tetovo, Belgrade, Strumica, New York, Budapest, Ohrid, Bitola and Novi Sad. She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions. In 2022, she represented North Macedonia at the 59th Venice Biennale (together with Robert Jankuloski).
Contact:
phone: +389 70 365 467
moteskam@gmail.com
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2024 | Novi Sad, Serbia, Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina,
Landscape Experience, (with R. Jankuloski)
2023 | Bitola, Institute and Museum Gallery, Landscape Experience (with R. Jankuloski)
2023 | Skopje, Cifte Hammam, National Gallery, Landscape Experience (with R. Jankuloski)
2022 | Venice, Italy, Macedonian Pavilion, 59. Venice Art Biennale, Landscape Experience Project (with R. Jankuloski)
2022 | Rijeka, Croatia, Principij Gallery, Archive of Reality, (with R. Jankuloski)
2020 | Skopje, National Gallery, Chifte Hammam, Embroidery in Stone
2019 | Skopje, Contemporary Art Centre, Mobile Gallery, Silence Destruction
2018 | Novi Sad, Serbia, Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Simulations
2017 | Tetovo, CBC Gallery LOJA, Mutants
2014 | Prilep, NUCK “Marko Cepenkov” – Art Gallery, document child
2014 | Skopje, National Gallery, Mala Stanica, Survivign Memories
2013 | New York (USA), MC Gallery, Natura Morta
2011 | Tetovo, Centre for Balkan Cooperation Loja – Scardina Fest, Apocalypse,
(with Maylinda Hoxha)
2011 | Ohrid, Cultural Centre, Ohrid Summer Festival, Natura Morta
2011 | Skopje, NGM National Gallery, Mala Stanica, document.child
2011 | Strumica, Cultural Centre, document.child (part of Asterfest Film Festival)
2010 | Belgrade (Serbia), ARTGET gallery KBC, Natura Morta
2009 | Budapest (Hungary), PASSAGE gallery, Apocalypse
2009 | Belgrade (Serbia), ZVONO Gallery, Apocalypse
(with Dijana Tomik and Vana Uroshevik)
1998 | Vienna (Austria), Kultur Kontakt, Fire Swallower
1998 | Skopje CIX Gallery, Achilles’s Heel
1996 | Skopje, MKC, The Big Blue
1994 | Skopje, Suli An, Paintings
R O B E R T J A N K U L O S K I
Born in Prilep, Macedonia, 1969.
Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Department of Camera, Skopje, BFA 1996.
University of Audiovisual Arts – ESRA, Skopje MFA degree in Camera, 2011.
He is a founder of Macedonian Center for Photography, 2000.
Presently he is full professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje.
Address: “Vera Jocik” 1D/12, 1000, Skopje,
Republic of North Macedonia.
tel: ++ 389 70 231 055
e-mail: robert.jankuloski@gmail.com
… Robert Jankuloski is one of the most important Macedonian photographers. He is an artist who uses photography as a means of creative expression. He works conceptual photography, photo installation, documentary photography and landscape photography, but the landscape understood as a document of the environment. He exhibited at numerous important exhibitions in Europe. Robert is also a university professor of photography and a researcher of old Macedonian photography.
He has graduated from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje, Camera Department and earned his Master of Arts degree in 2011 at the University for Audiovisual Arts – ESRA Paris-Skopje-New York, Skopje. In 2000 he founded the Macedonian Centre for Photography. He has had 42 individual exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions around the world: Skopje, Venice, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Wien, New York, Istanbul, Brussels, Warsaw, Zagreb, Pancevo, Paris, Roma, Plovdiv, Lyon, Rotterdam… Winner of several awards in the area of visual arts and film. Presently he is full professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje.
Projects:
2024 | Bitola via Debar, Interdisciplinary project about photographic work of Zafir Oshavkov, Project manager
2023 | CULTART Cultural Management Academy (Erasmus +) – Applied Arts, National Gallery, March 27-31, Key Speaker
2022 | Ohrid 1940-45, Interdisciplinary project about photographic work of Jonce Pop Stefanija, Project manager
2022 | World Press Photo / “Resilience – Stories of women inspiring change” – Skopje, Project manager and trainer
2021 | “WW1 REMEMBERING”, Project manager
2021 | “Enhancing the cultural touristic product of the cross-border area of Prespa through the promotion of the natural and cultural heritage” (HOLY WATER)
– Key Expert
2020 | “The Rude Awakening – a multimedia journey in the footsteps of frontline soldiers’ everyday life” – Project manager MCP Skopje/ Expert
2020 | “Photography 20:20” – Project manager
2013 | “The Photography – A Witness or A Victim” supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Project manager
2007-2011 | “А Different View – Documentary Photography Project” supported by the Swiss Cultural Program in the Western Balkans, Project manager
2000-2004 | “Old Macedonian Photography” supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Project manager
Solo Exhibitions:
2024 | Novi Sad, Serbia, Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina,
Landscape Experience, (with M. Moteska)
2023 | Bitola, Institute and Museum Gallery, Landscape Experience (with M. Moteska)
2023 | Skopje, Cifte Hammam, National Gallery, Landscape Experience (with M. Moteska)
2022 | Venice, Italy, Macedonian Pavilion, 59. Venice Art Biennale, Landscape Experience Project (with M. Moteska)
2022 | Rijeka, Croatia, Principij Gallery, Archive of Reality, (with M. Moteska)
2020 | Skopje, New Landscapes – Archive of Reality, Mala Stanica, National Gallery
2020 | Skopje, WW1 Remembering, Mala Stanica, National Gallery of Macedonia
2018 | Bitola, Institute and Museum Gallery, 1918-2018 Rephotographing
2018 | Skopje, Contemporary Art Centre, Mobile Gallery, Walls for You Wonderful People
2018 | Novi Sad, Serbia, Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Simulations
(with M. Moteska)
2017 | Podgorica, Montenegro, Gallery of the Centre of Contemporary Art, Instant Families / Multiplication of Love
2014 | Prilep, Gallery of the Cultural Centre “Marko Cepenkov”, View from the window
2014 | Skopje, Mala Stanica, National Gallery, Surviving Memories, (with M. Moteska)
2013 | New York, USA, MC Gallery, Natura Morta, (with M. Moteska)
2013 | Skopje, Mala Stanica, National Gallery, View from the window
2012 | Brussels (Belgium) Theatre Moliere, Shared Shrines
2012 | Istanbul (Turkey), Youruks
2011 | Ohrid, Cultural Centre-Ohrid Summer Festival, Natura Morta, (with M. Moteska)
2010 | Belgrade (Serbia), Cultural Centre – Artget Gallery, Natura Morta
(with M.Moteska)
2010 | Caen (France), Scriptorium, Yuruks
2010 | Strasbourg (France), Council of Europe, Shared Shrines
2009 | Budapest (Hungary), Passage Gallery, National Dance Theatre, Shared Shrines
2009 | Skopje, Gallery of the Cinemateque of Macedonia, Moving
2009 | Skopje, National Gallery, Mala Stanica, Shared Shrines
2006 | Wien (Austria) Art Point Gallery (A part of European Month of Photography)
2005 | Prilep, Gallery of the Cultural Centre, Greeting from Prilep
2004 | Plovdiv (Bulgaria), Balaban House Gallery, Preserving the Memories
2003 | Belgrade (Yugoslavia), KBC Artget Gallery, Preserving the Memories
2003 | Istanbul (Turkey), Yuruks
2003 | Pancevo (Yugoslavia), Gallery of Contemporary, Arts Streets
2002 | Skopje, Museum of Macedonia, Yuruks
2002 | Novi Sad, (Yugoslavia), Balkan art Festival, Preserving the Memories
2002 | Wien (Austria), MA Restaurant, (Context Europe) 12. Silver Soldiers
2000 | Skopje, ‘One Degree Gallery’, Preserving the Memories
1998 | Skopje, CIX gallery, si ju si mi
1997 | Skopje, Cultural Center “Mala Stanica”, Out of Photo 2
photo installation “Ciao Diana”
1994 | Skopje, Gallery “Faust”, Year-Book Panel
1992 | Skopje, JAT Gallery, organized by the Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art, Notes MK
1992 | Skopje, Youth Cultural Center, Signature, Event, Context, (with S. Milevska)
1991 | Skopje, Youth Cultural Center, Rock Photography
1991 | Prilep, Gallery of the Cultural Center, Rock Photography
1991 | Kumanovo, Gallery of the Cultural Center, Rock Photography
