April meetings in the blocked SKC: Is this the best exhibition in town?

They urinated in the toilet bowl factory that collapsed due to privatization, they drew on the back with a razor blade, displayed art through penises, they released noise from the suicide drones of Ukrainian and Russian arsonists to the war, but they also collected people's rejections for jobs and made medicines to make the art scene easier to bear.

These are just some of the works that students present to the audience in blocked SKC, during the "April Meetings". A critical review of the crisis in society dominates, in which young people have been blocking colleges for months in the cry for rights in the country, but also existential problems - rejection, media voyeurism, paranoia...

"Over the decades, the problems and issues that conceptual artists deal with have changed, but we wanted to continue the tradition of 'April Meetings' in our own way," Đorđe Tufegdžić, an artist who was a member of the working group for the Festival Program, told Vreme.

What are "April Fools"

"April meetings" have been around since the seventies of the last century, when SKC was really student-run for the first time. This is how the festival of new, expanded media was designed, so performance, video art, installation, digital art were given the opportunity... In the socialism of the time, it was considered a place where young emerging artists could experiment with visual expressions, criticize traditional concepts, both in art and in politics, and gather the avant-garde of the whole of Yugoslavia. Marina Abramović and Raša Todosijević, who are also known to non-art audiences, exhibited there.

Although the festival continued even after SKC was taken away from the students and became a stronghold for political malfeasance, the meetings after the eighties were only a slight echo of the original ones, and the least attended were young people, for whom they should be intended. 

"It was all organized, but it was not intended for the student community, no one had access to SKC and we did not come to any events," says one of the artists.

Now, when SKC is again student-run, a group of several artists, who were also part of the working group for the Festival Program, told "Vreme" why "April Meetings" are important to them and took the reporter through the entire line-up.

No competition

Not everyone can enter SKC. Although the festival is open to visitors from 18 p.m., before noon there are students guarding it, as well as artists exhibiting at it. They say that there was no competition for the festival.

"We didn't want to limit people with the competition because we didn't want to reject anyone. That way we would put ourselves in a situation where we would be an institution that rejects someone, as we have been countless times", says one of the artists. "Collaborations arose spontaneously, we talked with colleagues from other universities, from the region, and we also have foreign exhibitors. There are at least 30 participants."

Another artist, a student from the Academy of Fine Arts, says that, after all those rejections, young creators in Serbia can hardly get a space where they can express themselves. He himself never dreamed that he would be able to create and exhibit at SKC, and he adds that, before the student blockades, this was impossible, even though this institution has the word student in its name.

Left mutation 

At the Plenum, they voted that the media may not film or take photos at the festival, so the photos for this text were taken from the artists themselves. When asked if the "April Meetings" are a left-wing approach to art, because the festival had its peak during socialism, artist Ivanja Todorović says that he "doesn't understand the question", but his colleague adds that their older colleagues just criticized the political order at the time, but that "they are certainly not right-wing". They agreed that the students decided to continue the festival as a kind of "left mutation".

What do those older colleagues, who used to exhibit, tell them?

"Usually people come who understand art and the program, we have received very positive comments - among them is that we are the best exhibition in the city in recent years," says artist Ana Stojković.

Politics in art and paranoia

They create and work in an age of collective crisis in society, and everyone agrees that the artistic approach is always political. That is why there is the work of their colleague Sava Nikolić, who presented material found on the Internet in a schizophrenic room, published by a man who thinks he is being followed by the BIA and that he is a victim of a mind control program and playing movies into the brain.

"We have all gone a little in that direction in these few months, all of us who are involved in the student movement are a little paranoid, so we sympathize with him," says one of the attendees.

When asked if they feel the same way when they read what the tabloids write about them, they answer that "they feel more like the media are crazy."

"Nevertheless, when real things happen, when students are attacked, then we also become paranoid," adds the student-artist.

What else can be seen and felt

In front of SKC, visitors are already greeted by several large gray billboards. It's that characteristic snow forest from the screen. Three screenshots of snow, i.e. loss of signal from Ukrainian and Russian suicide drones, are shown, which were taken from the websites of Russian and Ukrainian war mongers.

They use the material recorded by drones as entertainment material on the Internet for movies or porn, and sell death as a product.

In one of the galleries, there are numerous remedies - for putting up with the vanity of artists, editors and decision-makers, for rejection, but also for a better understanding of philosophy.

When you enter the first gallery, in one corner there is an antique shelf with 190 stacked papers. These are all rejections for various scientific meetings, conferences, scholarships, exchanges, but also jobs that people sent them.

The idea with the installation came about accidentally and spontaneously, because the author, who introduces herself with the initials VP, last year collected 50 pages of application for a scholarship that she did not receive and says that she was traumatized by it, so this is a form of group therapy. There is also a white paper, it is a rejection letter that was also rejected by the printer.

Those who visit the festival at SKC until April 26, may in the coming decades be able to say that they were part of some new history of this student institution.