Vuk Ćuk

Eugster || Belgrade will present a new series of artworks by Vuk Ćuk at Liste Art Fair Basel,
from 13th to 19th of June,
and on Liste Showtime, from 13th to 26th of June 2022. 

Find us at Booth 8, Messe Basel Hall 1.1

With overwhelming concerns that marked the past three years, we are approaching an era of post-pandemic anxiety, which extends to predictions and speculations on an upcoming economic crisis. This subject has been central to Vuk Ćuk’s practice since the beginning of 2020, when he started observing the global fascination with technological advancements that follow capitalist trends. Examining the circulation of data, objects and, as of recently, viruses, the artist invites us to meet Nature, capital N, as it collides with the challenges of the 21st century.

The new series of paintings will remind us of some of the bizarre consequences of human activity, as well as the ways in which “nature retaliates”, as the media often likes to remind us. The dreadful idea of nature that is vindictive and unforgiving threads through the narrative behind these works, reminding us, however, that this view is inherently selfish and essentially human. With that in mind, Ćuk creates an environment in which one cannot be sure whether the hybrid entities on display are referring to something “man-made”, something unnatural, or in fact very natural — belonging to a world of simultaneous hyper-production and emptiness.

The big new piece made for LISTE 2022 is a polyptych created out of 21 paintings, where each painting is made so that it cuts the depicted object or motif in a way that disfigures it. The idea is to portray the circulation of matter, things and information as abundant, fast, imprecise and essentially subservient to “the bigger picture”. Playing with the duality of the wasteful and the desired, Ćuk intentionally makes the single paintings appear more abstract (the closer we are to any process, the less we are able to see it clearly). In this case, the “process” could refer to the collective production and circulation of waste; to our desire for the capital-curated objects; or simply to our inevitable participation in everything that happens in our societies: the stunning imbalance in the global distribution of wealth, as well as the distribution of information, rights, possibilities as such.

All of these issues have been personified by individuals, tech moguls, big company owners, politicians; or rather masked away by a methodical care for the environment, often offered by the same companies that contribute to the creation of these problems. Thinking about these subjects, Vuk Ćuk creates a series of paintings that capture the scenes which illustrate our contemporary condition. He looks at the individuals dragged through the media in the context of the pandemic and the technological appropriation of the world (Billie, 2022), but at the same time, he portrays animals that coexist with such changes and unwillingly participate in the same scenario, oftentimes suffering severe consequences (Koala, 2022; Best Friends, 2022; Day on the bus, 2022).