For NADA Miami 2024, Eugster || Belgrade presents a new body of work by Vuk Ćuk.
In the midst of an overwhelming moment in time that is contaminated with new expectations, speculations, content, socio-political relationships, climate predictions and so on, it seems as if every moment is elusive. Fuelled by the need to grasp these new conditions of life, we are left with a feeling of urgency to adapt to what we built for ourselves. These issues were always at the forefront of Vuk Ćuk’s practice, who has dealt with the most timely concerns, addressing the global fascination with technological advancements that follow the capitalist logic. The material collected by examining widespread interests tends to show the most bizarre and unexpected aspects of human nature, which is tackled with a playful and world-building approach.
A new series of paintings (featuring U-Bus, Sunday, Wild Ride, fyi, among others) that will be presented could be considered an extension of his artistic practice. The over-saturation and the recurring motifs are now, in these new proposals for artworks, transformed into liminal playgrounds that create bizarre environments. The gradient, disappearing backgrounds leave the subjects in some of the paintings floating in space, in a manner that resembles memories of content we’ve collected in our minds from the internet. The idea creates a parallel of the arrangement on the walls to a vortex, the action of being exposed to a weird opening and being pulled into it with cryptic imagery. The images were never meant to be paintings, but this way, they become markers of the most current digital content assemblages.
When thinking about the exposure to what once tended to be perceived as “unnatural,” we stray away from any naturally logical way in which our reality can be generated, recreated and distributed, to the extent where it becomes indisputable. As we navigate the crossing of the tangible/digital divide, we are left questioning our agency and control, over and over again. Transforming randomness into deliberate choices, as seen in Let Me Spoil You (2024), aims to address this challenge, and confront the emptiness that it evokes.
The considered ideas that the presentation outlines also share focus with the post-capitalist desire that is always a subcategory in Vuk’s practice. Subconsciously, what attracts our attention is what the collective mind presents as desirable, and with the advances in systems of communication and knowledge sharing, the standards appear to be revealing increasingly homogenized fantasies of what fulfilment means, now more than ever. Without sounding too radical, the works are ironic images of anti-globalist culture, giving us everything at once so that we can find our way back, or just to help us digest today.
The proposed scene features paintings and large-scale “diamond paintings,” a technique coordinated with the consumeristic logic of image reproduction, through its bead-by-color scheme online service trait. They create a solid set of connections between consumer culture and popular culture, and call attention to the void-filling mindset and uncanny, dreamlike environments.