The Republic of Serbia Pavilion at the 59 ^th Venice Biennial will feature work by Vladimir Nikolic under exhibition title Walking with Water, curated by Biljana Ciric . Walking with Water will present Nikolic new body of work.

Selection committee out of thirty -five proposals, shortlisted eight and unanimously selected project Walking with Water.

Selection committee included Commissioner and Museum of Contemporary Art director Marijana Kolaric, art historian Ana Eres, art historian Jerko Denegri, artist Ivan Grubanov, art historian Jasmina Cubrilo and Sarita Vujkovic director of Museum of Contemporary Art, Banja Luka – appointed by the Ministry of Culture and Media.

Walking with Water: “In the upcoming Venice Biennial, one of the key topics is the relationship between technology and our bodies. Living through the pandemic and the isolation it caused, technology became our mode of connection but also of separation. It accelerated the difference between the privileged and those who are not. Those whose world views are mediated by the screen, and those whose eye remains a direct optical instrument. The artist reflects these worldviews in this exhibition.” From curatorial text Walking with Water drafted by Biljana Ciric

About Vladimir Nikolic:

Vladimir Nikolić lives and works in Belgrade. His work includes video, video performance, film and photography. In his early works Nikolić explores the mechanisms of ritual submission to religious authority and tradition, or it deals with the authority of art history. Throughout his work he constantly exercises institutional critique, and questions the artist’s general purpose in the world of art. In later works he explores visual perception and the idea of time and space, and the ways they are submitted to history of optics and new technologies.

He exhibited works internationally both in solo and group exhibitions and took part in art residency programs such as Foundation for a Civil Society (New York, 2003), Recollets (Paris, 2007), Otto Prod (Marseille, 2008), 24cc (Rome, 2011), Times Museum (Guangzhou, 2014), IASPIS (Stockholm, 2016), Tobačna 001 (Ljubljana, 2017). His artworks take place in international private and public collections, such as Centre Pompidou collection, Berardo Museum Lisbon, FRAC Poitou Charente, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, Vehbi Koç Foundation Contemporary Art Collection, MAXXI- National Museum of 21^st Century Art, Rome, etc.

About Biljana Ciric:

Biljana Ciric is an interdependent curator.

She is currently conceiving inquiry for first Trans- Southeast Asian Triennial in Guang Zhou Repetition as a Gesture Towards Deep Listening.

She was the co-curator of the 3rd Ural Industrial Biennale for Contemporary Art (Yekaterinburg, 2015), curator in residency at Kadist Art Foundation (Paris, 2015), and a research fellow at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Høvikodden, 2016). Her recent exhibitions include An Inquiry: Modes of Encounter presented by Times Museum, Guang Zhou (2019); When the Other Meets the Other Other presented by Cultural Center Belgrade (2017); Proposals for Surrender presented by McAM in Shanghai (2016/2017); and This exhibition Will Tell You Everything About FY Art Foundations in FY Art Foundation space in Shen Zhen (2017).

In 2018 she established the educational platform What Could/Should Curating Do? She was nominated for the ICI Independent Vision Curatorial Award (2012). Currently she is developing a long-term project reflecting on China’s Belt and Road Initiative titled As you go . . . the roads under your feet, towards a new future. She is undertaking practice based PhD in Curatorial Practice at Monash University, Melbourne.