Gifts

by Gabriela Vasic

Gallery Zvono, Belgrade

Installation + happening, 19 th June, 2000 at 20:30

Exhibition is opened until 3 rd of July.

If you ever or tonight gave a gift Gabriela Vasic, your gift might be presented.

Gifts as a value that remains to us, Gabriela used ironically to reflect the idea of sponsorship. Principles of donating should be done in public if they are to gain or to affirm a social status. Those who give gifts are those who have the power (to give and to destroy), but the artist is annuls received gifts, using the possibility of being an artist whose power is to act in the “sacred” space of the gallery. Taking an advantage of being an artist who holds an exhibition term, she uses the authority of gallery walls to exhibit gifts. The gallery space is divided in two categories. The entering space is used to show a permanent installation. At the same time, during the opening and until the end of the exhibition, artist receives gifts, which are exhibited on the wall of the gallery, as constantly changing installation, in the background room. By registration on randomly chosen cards with words of importance for our civilization (which artist takes from the experience), donators-participants are given possibility to exhibit with the artist, because, their gift by notation, as a title for an industrial object, becomes an artistic piece.