56th Venice Biennale
Pavilion of the Republic of Macedonia

We are all in this alone

Hristina Ivanoska and Yane Calovski
Curated by Basak Senova

9 May-22 November 2015

The work is a multilayered installation incorporating minimalist translation of the fresco of the XII century church “St. Gjorgi” in the village of Kurbinovo (Macedonia) and the writings by Simone Weil, Luce Irigaray, and Paul Thek. As a whole, the work communicates the idea of faith as an emotional and an intellectual condition, and a contemporary socio-political anomaly, in the same time.

Ivanoska and Calovski have collaborated non-exclusively since 2000 creating works that often address historical and theoretical hypothesis as context-based scenarios. Their works and projects have been exhibited and collected internationally in both private and public institutions and collections. Ivanoska (1974, Skopje) has build her artistic practice by finding ways of individual action against the established social roles and norms defined by the conventional social and political systems.Calovski (1973, Skopje) is interested in reactivating, rather then fictionalizing, existing inconclusive modernist narratives that emerge from his evolving experience within disparate international contexts.  The artists are represented by Zak | Branicka Gallery; they live and work in Skopje and Berlin.

Basak Senova, the first foreign curator appointed to the Macedonian Pavilion, has also curated the Pavilion of Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. Recently, she curated the Helsinki Photography Biennial 2014 and the Jerusalem Show.

Commissioner of the Macedonian pavilion is the National Gallery of Macedonia supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia and other partners.

Image: Hristina Ivanoska and Yane Calovski.  Courtesy National Gallery of Macedonia.