Interview with Curator Teodora Nikčević and Project Authors Adrijana Gvozdenović and Nela Gligorović
T.N: To start, could you tell us how the idea and collaboration for the project Workers’ Club: Between Us came about?
N.G: Our collaboration began within the exhibition Marginalia of the Common or How to Read Yugoslavism in Contemporary Artistic Practices. This exhibition emerged as a gravitational program of a regional initiative on a shared language and the persistence of the Yugoslav cultural space, despite political structures, borders, territories, and other political dictates. Since it questions issues of identity, language, migration, institutions, and labor in the arts, Adrijana’s research Who is Adrian Lister? was an ideal choice for a contemporary Yugoslav, a migrant, and a cultural worker in Belgium. From then on, we have been engaging in discussions, sharing tools, experiences, materials, and knowledge. Aligned in our working methods, we strive to dismantle rigid hierarchical structures within art institutions, where the artist is seen as the guarantor of autonomy, while the curator acts as a butler or guardian of the art world. Institutionally determined roles keep all actors in the art system trapped within their designated “authorities” or positions, restricting exchange and the advancement of experience in the field of collective work and art as a collaborative practice. As a result of discussions on labor, conditions, and regulations, the Workers’ Club format emerged. It raises questions about how we can work, read, acknowledge, change, understand, listen, and discuss together—perceiving the field of art as a domain of collective work and shared struggle. That is why we decided to shape the exhibition space given to us into a workers’ club—not only for cultural workers but for everyone engaged in today’s capitalist production.
A.G: Perhaps I should also mention that the proposal to present our practices at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro (MSUCG) came after our submission to the museum’s open call for Montenegro’s representation at the 60th Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2024, where we placed second. Our proposal envisioned an exhibition as “an interactive space, a meeting and resting place, a reading room, a space of solidarity and community.” Within this space, we planned to publish a magazine during the exhibition’s duration, addressing numerous questions related to identity, gender, labor, the state, economy, equality, and community. As we developed this proposal for the context of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Gallery, the concept gradually evolved into Workers’ Club: Between Us. “Between Us” was conceived through Nela’s work on Marginalia of the Common and my research question Who is Adrian Lister?. Both projects complicate existing notions of identity in an effort to create new forms of action. We defined the space between us as one formed through unspoken solidarities, tacit agreements, and unwritten understandings. At the same time, it is also a space where socio-political strategies of the past intersect with transitional processes that reshape the cultural system, allowing us to recognize specific tendencies and connections in cultural and artistic practices. Within the exhibition, we seek to practice how the space between us is formed, hoping that in this process, we may uncover possibilities for everyday resistance. The practice begins with the very conception of the exhibition: by questioning our roles as curator and artist, we “interfere in each other’s work.” My previous works serve as catalysts for organizing the space. Nela creates interventions that can be read as artworks, while certain segments, such as the library and video guide, emerge organically from the exhibition-making process—these are the places where the exhibition exposes itself.
T.N: You have described the Workers’ Club as an interactive space—a place for gathering, resting, reading, solidarity, and community—which recalls Rodchenko’s Workers’ Club from 1925, designed for the Soviet Pavilion at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. Your decision to situate such a project within an art gallery raises questions about the nature of public space. In your opinion, what defines public space—its ownership, the people who use it, or something else? How do you personally understand public space in the context of labor?
N.G: Public spaces are territories where sociality manifests, shaped by public policies and structured through socio-political agreements. When discussing public space in the context of labor, even though we are dealing with an experimental format, it is crucial to recognize that the Workers’ Club takes place within the institution of the Museum of Contemporary Art, which is determined by cultural policy and social relations. While supporting autonomy as a key principle of the art world, public spaces for art have been shaped by the ideology of the white cube, treating space as sacred and thus ideologically constructed. In the white cube, art is positioned as a source of purely aesthetic experience. The artwork demands a white, erased space, cleansed of context, conditions, and circumstances—affirming the self-sufficiency of the art world! In such controlled conditions, art is kept outside the totality of life’s activities, remaining silent about the exploitation of artists and inequalities in the distribution of art. Issues of unpaid or underpaid labor in the arts are not structurally examined but are instead wrongly framed as individual problems, reducing them to the economic validation of talent. Since we are all contractually bound to capital today, it is necessary to identify with the working class in order to activate mechanisms of change. One important note: class is often overlooked when interpreting art. This is why the manifestation of the Workers’ Club within an institution matters to us—it offers a possibility for different forms of sociality, work on systemic change, care for the community, and the imagination of a solidarity-based society built on diverse knowledge. In the context of labor, the institutional space presents a challenge in addressing what it means to be a cultural worker under capitalism, what kinds of relationships exist within cultural production and distribution, how to organize collectively, and how to integrate feminist principles into community-building and strengthening.
A.G: I am interested in the gallery as a place of encounter—how art works, or rather, what it is that we do when we make art. The focus is not on what is being presented—what we see—but on how what we see can shape the space between us. This involves thinking about how we work and create art, and more broadly, how we connect with others, with our surroundings, and with the world. In this sense, between us is a set of methods that encourage exchange, collaboration, and collective imagination. These methods make visible what is already present or bring forth what is taken for granted and considered ordinary—revealing the mechanisms of normative behaviors as something subject to change. Regarding the concept of public space, I would focus on the question of accessibility and usage. One could say that public space exists where people gather to engage in activities that go beyond individual interests, fostering shared experiences. In that sense, we might think of public space not as a location, but as a practice of creating relationships. In Workers’ Club: Between Us, we create a temporary system of relations through performative instructions and workshops—a temporary institution within an institution, a gallery within a gallery—where roles, ideas, and knowledge are exchanged. Thinking about public space, then, also means thinking about and practicing formats that enable encounters, conversations, solidarity, and inclusivity—elements that are essential for any discussion on labor and working conditions. This is where I locate my work because there is still much to be done to open up space—or more precisely, to create the conditions for a space where discussions about the commodification of culture, the appropriation of market values, the cultural policies that push toward entrepreneurship, and the misconceptions about artistic production as independent of state subsidies or ideologically neutral can take place. These are all potential topics related to public space in the context of labor. However, I am interested in how to arrive at these understandings in a way that does not render discussion an end in itself. And this is where I see the potential of art.
T.N: The Workers’ Club explores ideas of community, accessibility, and public dialogue. How has the context of Montenegro’s artistic and cultural scene influenced the decision to present this project here? If it has, do you think this adds a layer of social critique to the project?
N.G: I wouldn’t call it social critique, but rather a social possibility. Since we have the opportunity to work within a space defined by cultural policy, we want to talk about the working conditions in art. While the exhibition can be interpreted as institutional critique—questioning the rules, logic, and structure of the museum—it is, at the same time, an aspiration, a desire, and an imagination of more equal social relations. The museum, on the other hand, as a partner, demonstrates flexibility in its operations. The museum space provides the Workers’ Club with an artistic context—and here we are. Collaboration among art institution stakeholders is essential for balancing relationships. This is how we should build alliances, coalitions, and exhibitions—without neglecting the heteronomy of labor and seeing the artistic field not as an autonomous entity, but as a dense network of cooperative relationships. The exhibition emerges as a specific form of museum mediation, as content produced for the institution that critiques art as an ideology—questioning the concepts of genius, authorship, originality, and uniqueness. Our critique is directed at the structure of the art institution rather than any specific case within Montenegro’s cultural and artistic scene. However, only by understanding the structure can we work toward changing social relations—directly, within the community.
A.G: I have been living here and there for over ten years, so I would say that Montenegro’s social context, as well as the cultural dynamics in Europe (specifically in Belgium and Germany), shape my work. In that sense, the Workers’ Club could be placed anywhere—the concrete actions would simply shift depending on the specific context. Today, with the rise of right-wing and nationalist policies, initiatives that prioritize community-building, accessibility, public dialogue, and intellectual development are losing systemic support. Experimental and open approaches mostly emerge and evolve within the independent scene, driven by the efforts of individuals or groups, but they struggle to transform established institutional frameworks. The primary goal of this exhibition is not to highlight deficiencies but to explore how recognizing these deficiencies can serve as a foundation for different forms of action. We are interested in the possibility of change by creating an environment that examines existing norms. I want to move away from a critique that merely points fingers and instead develop a sense of criticality—an incentive for us to recognize our own complicity in the very problems we address.
T.N: I am sending you these questions during the preparation for the exhibition, which includes several actions, one of which is the demolition of the gallery wall, before the official opening of the exhibition. What are your expectations and hopes for the Workers’ Club, especially in the context of your previous experience with similar projects that were not located within art institutions?
A.G: For years, among other things, I occasionally work as a technician in the production of museum exhibitions. The demolition and raising of walls from exhibition to exhibition changes the choreography of the space, but from my point of view it is a very bizarre action: one artist or curator “radically” opens the space, and another “radically” closes it after a month. While I’m working, I often have a utopian vision of an exhibition that would be created with the audience and that is formed that way over a long period of time… where all forms of work are visible and open for negotiation. Tearing down the wall is for me a glimpse of this fantasy. Of course, this work, as well as other professional experiences, informs my practice and for years has fueled an interest guided by the question: do exhibitions create works of art or works of art create exhibitions? As for the projections for our Workers’ Club, we have already indicated potential for the future within the exhibition: within the workshop we will strive to produce a Manual for acquiring and maintaining the status of an independent artist and expert in culture; with the magazine Between Us: Rad in Art, we have registered the Workers’ Club as a publisher and we would like to continue that practice; in the discursive program, we managed to gather associates from the region and beyond so that experiences could be compared and different perspectives could be shared. In addition, we can see the Workers’ Club within educational institutions, and the challenge would be to set it up outside the cultural sphere as well.
N.G: Preparatory work or the action of demolishing the wall is a performative prologue for the Workers’ Club exhibition “Between Us”. Demolition is a gesture against the autonomy of art[2], a demand for the inclusion of art in social flows. Symbolically, we decided to tear down the walls of the museum as the boundaries of the institution of art that keeps at a social distance all those who do not possess “specific” knowledge, leaving them uninvited and frustrated. It is necessary to open the space to the public; the museum as a place of alternative models of education, meeting, questioning and debate. As for expectations and hopes when it comes to the Workers’ Club, self-organization is a key determinant of our activities, so the Workers’ Club appears as a registered publisher of the first issue of the magazine Between Us: Work in Art, self-financed by funds collected through project applications.
T.N: You use the term “workers in culture” and point out that the intention is to transform the space of the art gallery into a reading room/club. Should this work be understood as creating a work of art to which others should react, or is it about creating a work together with the audience? In light of that – how did you decide to include the space for the workshop, exchange, kitchen and library with the specific location of the art gallery?
A.G: A worker in culture is primarily a position of solidarity, drawing attention to the fact that artistic and intellectual activity is work, as well as relying on the legacy of Yugoslav socialism to reflect on different ways of doing art. “The term ‘cultural worker’ is either completely unknown or an exotic category in the EU.”[3] In addition, “cultural worker” is closer to the description of the work I do as an artist / author / educator / researcher / technician / designer / friend… Role-playing, workshop, exchange space, kitchen and library are not a matter of interior design – they are the core of the exhibition. Each of these segments of space reflects a specific dimension of cultural work: research, reflection, socializing, relaxation, practical action, contemplation, creation, exchange of knowledge.
N.G: Art is social work, and a worker in culture is a determination, artistic and political, daily resistance to structures in neoliberalism and reminiscence of a socialist alternative. When thinking about the space, the gallery was adapted as a community space for education, conversation, exchange and regeneration, for performing sociability. Common spaces are organized for rest and care, contemplation, reparation, questioning of working, social, economic, and legal conditions, with the aim of potential organization, change and imagination of different social relations. In the Workers’ Club, we set up a room for care and relaxation as a place of correlation between affective and artistic work (which are often compared because they are free, invisible to the capitalist form of production). An important reference for the layout and content of the magazine is part of the book by Katja Praznik[4], which applies the theoretical and epistemological dimension of the feminist critique of domestic work to the field of work in art. I will briefly refer to the question of the organization of the space and the participation of the audience, which is usually an invisible actor in the world of art. I will use the words of August Boal, who established the method of the theater of the oppressed – one spectator is always less than one man. [5] The workers’ club does not need observers, but co-workers.
T.N: Can you tell us how the materials you use for the realization of the exhibition articulate the idea of transparency, not only in the technical sense of revealing the work process, but also in a wider – social and political context? Also, how does the introduction of objects from the register of everyday life contribute to this reflection, do they open up new possibilities for thinking about artistic work and its relationship to systems of consumption and control?
A.G: Transparency in this exhibition is realized on several levels in relation to the visible field. “To be able to declare anything at all in the field of the visible, we have to imitate the strategies that already exist, to appropriate them, not in spite of, but because of the forces in the field of art.”[6] Mimicking the process of working in an exhibition through the performativity of materials – whether it is the visible remains of a destroyed wall, layers of paint sanded away to reveal the Museum’s history, or garments that indicate the active role of the audience. In the video guide, Nela and I reveal dualities in the choice of material, without reducing it to a single reading. Transparency is read as a means of demystifying artistic processes and exposing work and control systems, but also maintaining complexity, resisting the demand for complete legibility or assimilation into dominant systems of knowledge and power. The incorporation of everyday materials (like plastic inflatable chairs or objects like clay) connects the exhibition to the ordinary and tangible, emphasizing that art is not “from everywhere and nowhere”, but an enterprise deeply intertwined with everyday life. Inflatable armchairs – soft, temporary and filled with air – highlight the precarious comfort and inherent fragility of art work. Similarly, slag, a by-product of industrial processes and a trace of a body at work. Everyday objects and repurposed materials of which we have prepared editions for exchange with the public also challenge the notion of exclusivity in art and invite the public to see these objects as part of a shared system of meaning and value, rather than as distant artefacts.
N.G: The materials used for the installation of the Workers’ Club articulate the instability, invisibility and uncertainty of the position of the worker in culture. The politics of the materials used is Adriana’s choice, a transposed experience of working in art or a way of demystifying the institution of art, the principles on which autonomy is maintained, the processes of art production and distribution take place. By choosing objects from everyday life, we comment on the dual nature of the autonomy of art.
T.N: What is the role of education in your work? During the exhibition, you plan to present a magazine that opens up questions about work in art. There is also a library open to an audience that may not have prior knowledge of titles in the field of philosophy and social theory…. Can you reveal to us the goals and approach of this type of activity?
N.G: The library and museum as institutions are formed with the aim of collecting and presenting knowledge as a place of social memory, from above, from controlled positions of power. Education is usually tied to the institution as controlled, ideologically processed knowledge. However, experiences testify that we acquire important knowledge through alternative, informal forms of education. Our library is a place for sharing knowledge, theories, and experience with the aim of building a common language that will enable action, a space of equality of different knowledge. It was built from all the documents and available materials that we read while preparing the installation. We make them available to the public who can further intervene with comments, links that they will leave while reading. The entered interpretations open up an interactive space of meaning – an invitation for new associates of the Workers’ Club. Although this space is created as our co-author project, we do not treat it as a space of representation, as an artistic-practical exhibition, but a concept that will continue to work, gathering people for the next edition of the Workers’ Club. The magazine was conceived as a broader framework of the exhibition, an insight into the theoretical and practical considerations of work in art. It contains direct testimonies of artists and art collectives and theoretical considerations of comrades about the necessity of introducing class into the reflection of art, what is the basis of the exploitation of artists in the neoliberal concept, why workers in art do not talk about unpaid work, how the social agreement works in the part of work in art, about the ways of workers’ struggle in art and strategies for building alliances. In short, as a platform for considering artistic work through Marxist-feminist perspectives.
A.G: Like art, education is treated as a practice of mutual support – where learning is not a solitary pursuit, but a shared experience that has the potential to change the way we engage with the world around us. It’s about creating an environment where audiences don’t just consume information, but co-create knowledge. And in this part, our method is to present the material that preceded the exhibition. We share our references so that others can follow up, but also so that they can critically approach the exhibition itself. The library includes different types of writing: poetry, reviews of works of art, parts of novels, newspaper articles… as forms of knowledge. In this part, we wanted to emphasize the importance of self-education, joint learning and self-organization. As well as the fact that education is not only imparting knowledge, but also encouraging critical engagement.
T.N: One of the elements of the exhibition is the neon sign ZA RAD BUDUĆNOSTI. It is a quote from the manifesto of the artist Mirko Kujačić from 1932, which criticizes the social and artistic system. The author points out that art has lost its essential value and has become focused on money, superficial desires and petty civic ambitions, as well as that its struggle is careerist. Kujačić ends the manifesto by calling on his comrades to “bring life into work for the work of the future through their young blood, exuberant aspirations, pure desire and rebellious palette.” Can you explain in more detail why you think this artist and intellectual from the first half of the 20th century offers ideas relevant to today’s situation?
A.G: I see these last words from Mirko Kujačić’s manifesto, singled out as a call to “future work”, as a touching contribution to contemporary discussions about the impossibility of imagining the future, which is the central theme of criticism of the current socio-political and economic moment. This inability is often attributed to the enormous pressures of late capitalism, insecurity, climate crises and technological acceleration, which trap individuals and societies in “today to tomorrow” working conditions. Capitalist realism[7] – the pervasive sense that there is no alternative to the current system – has created a cultural and political environment in which imagining a radically different future seems impossible. This manifests itself in the stagnation of utopian thought, where our visions of the future are often reduced to technological extrapolations rather than transformative social changes. Kujačić’s work reminds us of a moment in our history that warned of the risks of market logic. Invoking this heritage, this intervention by Nela opposes the paralysis of the present by advocating a critical reflection that re-imagines the future (from the past) as a place of possibility.
N.G: I have to use the opportunity for a few lines from the biography of Mirko Kujačić. In question is a socially engaged artist, worker, founder and member of the illegal group “Život”, which was active on the artistic and political level in the Yugoslav interwar period. By publishing a manifesto and exhibiting two installations that are a commentary on pure art in 1932, Kujačić stands out artistically and politically as a class-conscious man. As an advocate of social art, in the Manifesto he criticizes larpurartism, the separation of art from life, the absence of a connection with society, the introduction of art into the dead end of personal viewing[8], art as a careerist struggle, and the social exhibitionism of artists. Emphasizing that art is part of social products, he examines the conditions of production and distribution of art from a Marxist position. The questions raised by Kujačić are still relevant today – the necessity of class analysis of art, issues of work organization in art, problems of existence and exploitation of artists. The neon sign in the garden repeats the last words taken from the Manifesto – For the work of the future that happens by questioning public conditions, knowledge and rules today. Is the future at a dead end? Although we think it is, a society that talks, questions, learns and works will open spaces of progress.
T.N: The diagram How cultural workers live and what they dream about uses a universal approach as a means of criticizing the institutional and cultural context, as well as inequality and anxiety in the modern world. Nevertheless, artists and workers in culture create in very different conditions, both in terms of economic status and education, as well as in terms of other social inequalities, which raises the question of the universality of this approach. How does this exhibition take into account these differences? Do you think that artists and audiences in cities like New York or Berlin would understand the messages of the exhibition differently compared to artists and cultural workers in Montenegro?
A.G: I see Nela’s contribution to the exhibition as a desire to start a dialogue and expose issues. Although it deals with broader themes (such as inequality, work and anxiety), I still think that the approach is not universal, but rather a Marxist reading of Western art history from a position that concerns the social context of Europe, although it touches on global conditions under capitalism. The difference in reading would not depend so much on the geographical location as on different positions and specific conditions for action.
N.G: We can hardly talk about art without including the issue of class. If you don’t want to talk about class, keep quiet about art. (laughs) It is true that artists around the world create in different conditions and in different institutions of art, but those conditions are determined by the capitalist mode of production, class, capital, profit, market. The diagram is an attempt to gain insight into the heteronomies of artistic work and the system of art, the ideology of art, autonomy, an attempt to see the dense network of cooperative interactions and conditioning of actors: institutions of art, art history and work in art. The seemingly established balance of relationships and connections is apparent, the intricate field of terms of Marxist art theory. All three aspects are related to the central issue of art – and that is class.
T.N: Also, what role does the post-Yugoslav heritage play in this context?
N.G: The panorama of Yugoslavia is woven from utopian landscapes of a supranational concept, revolutionary enthusiasm, a self-governing system, a community of the non-aligned, the Yugoslav artistic space… It is an extremely important corpus of ideas, meanings and heritage and potent material for the imagination of new forms of sociality. In the context of the principles, practices, experiences and legacy of Yugoslav socialism, they are important references around which we built the Workers’ Club.
A.G: This raises the question of how these values can be re-imagined in the modern context where precarity and privatization dominate and where the boundaries between work and free time, public and private – have become blurred?
[1] From our submission with the working title Who is Adrian Lister, Marginalities of the Common.
[2] See more about the autonomy of art in: Peter Birger, Theory of the avant-garde, Narodna knjiga / Alfa, Belgrade, 1998.
[3] As stated by Ana Vujanović in her text From the proletariat to the precariat – and back, which was published in our magazine Between Us: Work in art – analysis of the crisis of social imagination.
[4] Katja Praznik, Art Work: Invisible Labor and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism, University of Toronto Press, 2021.
[5] Augusto Boal, Theater of the Oppressed, Prosveta, Niš.
[6] Urška Aplinc, from the text written for the exhibition This situation has developed over a long time (ŠKUC Gallery, Ljubljana, 2021).
[7] The concept explored by Mark Fisher, “the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it.” (Fisher, Mark, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?. Winchester, UK: Zero Books, 2010)
[8] Mirko Kujačić, My Manifesto, Štamparsko društvo Vreme, Belgrade, 1932.