Greetings from Montenegro

The latest artist for our new virtual gallery is Alen Aligrudic. I met Alen in Malmö and suggested him for inclusion to Pia Issakson who has curated the artists for the site. We both felt that his work with its dark sense of foreboding deserved wider attention. Alen was born in Tuzla in Bosnia and lives in Copenhagen. He holds degrees both from Denmark and the Czech republic and his currently completing his Masters degree at the Funen Art Academy in Odense.

In his work ”Greetings form Montenegro 2007- 2009” made through a number of journeys to one of the world’s youngest countries Alen explores the landscapes of post-independence. What emerges is a meditation on nature and capital.

As foreign investment has moved in the wake of the recent financial crisis, the once dreamt of prospect of this tiny nation becoming a new Monaco has evaporated. As Aligrudic points out “People need first to take care of their own economies, and instead of working out sustainable possibilities, they concluded that to sell their property was the easiest way out…interested foreign investors, started buying land and immovable property on the very same day Montenegro became independent.”

He offers us a bleak landscape of neglect. Abandoned vehicles, broken down factories, dead animals left to rot, industrial waste and the occasional limousine are the subjects of his work. The images are brutal in many ways, but perhaps define a contemporary space where greed has crushed any hope for renewal. What is apparent in many of the photographs is the way that nature quickly takes over the places we have left derelict. Trees burst through the shattered roof of a neglected greenhouse, a forest of young saplings repossesses places that once were industrialised. The structures we make are Like Shelley’s Ozymandian statue soon reduced to nothing by the forces of nature.

Post independence in the former Yugoslavia promised individual freedom, the prospect of self-determination and a fresh start free from ethnic violence and war. Three years after the referendum that led to that independence the reality for a nation of a little over half a million is that outside of the major cities the country seems to be moving backwards rather than forwards. If you Google the nation you are as likely to get an advertisement for international property sales or a travel guide as anything else. Aligrudic’s documentary is both timely and a rude reminder of both the inadequacy and power of international capital as well as the insatiable force of avarice.

For more information see:

http://alengrudix.dk/