The Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro announces the opening of the exhibition by renowned American artist Sam Durant titled “Echoes of the Non-Aligned: Gifts and Reciprocities,” which will open on Tuesday, September 10, 2024, at 8:00 PM in the MCAM Gallery. The exhibition is curated by Natalija Vujošević and will run until October 10, 2024.
The exhibition continues Durant’s interest in the Non-Aligned Movement and the post-colonial period, intersecting artworks from the Non-Aligned Countries Art Collection with new works by Sam Durant. The artist has selected 25 works from the collection that depict various aspects of collective activities—ranging from agricultural work and cultural gatherings to labor protests and anti-colonial struggles. One of the key elements of the exhibition is the illuminated sign “Another World is Possible,” a well-known motto of the World Social Forum, presented as a question, statement, and call to action.
In the central part of the gallery, Durant will showcase his new work—a model of Petrović Park, the former home of the Gallery of Non-Aligned Countries’ Art Josip Broz Tito, and now the seat of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro.
Through various activities like workstations and reading spaces, the artist invites visitors to learn, reflect, and imagine a better world. The audience can participate in creating monuments, writing slogans, and exploring ideas from the past that offered different visions of the future. The exhibition thus transforms into a dynamic and interactive space where everyone can create art together. Monuments, typically symbols of power, here become blueprints for a better world, crafted by the hands of ordinary people.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication featuring texts by Bojana Piškur and Natalija Vujošević, as well as an interview with the artist.
Sam Durant is an interdisciplinary artist whose works engage with various social, political, and cultural issues.
He graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1987 and completed his master’s studies at the California Institute of the Arts in 1991. His most recent work, Untitled (Drone), a public sculpture displayed at High Line Plinth in New York, highlights issues of armed conflict through drones and surveillance in American society.
He has held solo museum exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Ghent, Belgium), MOCA (Los Angeles, USA), and The Kunstverein Dusseldorf (Düsseldorf, Germany). His works have been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including Documenta 13, the Yokohama Triennale, and the Venice Biennale. In 2007, Durant compiled and edited the monograph Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas (Rizzoli Intl.) and curated the exhibition of the same name at MOCA in Los Angeles and the New Museum in New York. Durant’s works are part of many public collections, including The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, USA), Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA), Project Row Houses (Houston, USA), and Tate Modern (London, UK). He is represented by Blum & Poe in Los Angeles and Tokyo, Sadie Coles HQ in London, Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, and Praz Delavallade in Paris. Durant lives and works in Berlin and is a professor at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart.