The 55th October Salon

Over 270 artists applied and 18 were selected by the curators of the 55th October Salon, Nicolaus Schafhausen, director of Kunsthalle Wien, and Vanessa Joan Müller, Head of Dramaturgy at Kunsthalle Wien.

The concept suggested by the curators under the title Disappearing Things is dedicated to the role of collective and individual forms of remembrance in the digital era. On the one hand, the Internet does not forget anything of what has been stored in it once; on the other hand, such a large number of images and snap-shots are taken that each event seems to be replaced by the successive one. Smartphone applications such as Snap Chat which delete each message within a few seconds illustrate this paradox and promote a life in the here and now. It is against this background that Disappearing Things asks for the changed function of the cultural memory and the status of the image as a representative of reality.

Venue of the exhibition will be Belgrade City Museum, the former Military Academy in the city centre. Erected in 1899/1900 and abandoned for several years, the building provides an ideal setting for an exhibition that blends present and past itself.

Berlin based architect Roger Bundschuh designs the exhibition display. In addition to the exhibition, Brussels based curator Goran Petrović, director of Kran Film Collective (Brussels / Copenhagen), compiles a parallel film program.