"Decade of Failure – Focus Serbia

Saturday, November 05th, at 5PM, 2011.
ITS-Z1 (International Test Site-Z1), Ritopek
“Decade of Failure – Focus Serbia”
Performance and publication of Zampa di Leone

Free bus transportation for all who are interested leaves at 4PM from the plateau of the Church of St. Marko. Return is planned for 8PM. Apply by email: zampadileone@gmail.com

Zampa di Leone celebrates its decade of actions directed against the neoliberal schizophrenia, and the same kind of activism in culture. It is possible to sum up the principle of this event in one sentence: Zampa’s decade-long contribution to the failed project of contemporary Serbian art is huge!

Everything will be presented with a performance and yet unseen collection of Zampa’s works entitled “DECADE OF FAILURE – Focus Serbia”. The audience will have an opportunity to recall the adventures of Daddy’s Boy, Tycooness, Gera, Brdjan, Dr. Agan, Fried Gymnasts and all other sorts of heroes and heroines, protagonists of the failed project of contemporary Serbian art.

This evening will be an ideal opportunity for all working men and women, Belgrade and world audience, activists, radical artists and critically inclined interested parties to receive the publications of Zampa di Leone during an hours-long performance conceived for the space now widely known as the ITS-Z1 (International Test Site-Z1) in Ritopek, which was initiated by New York artist Dragan Ilic.

The collective Zampa di Leone has been focused for a decade now on deconstructing the market artistic production and its wavering role in the twilight of neoliberal capitalist culture. From mapping the local Balkan and European art scene, to uncovering the controversial process of gentrification, Zampa di Leone plunges its claws deep, revealing corruption and problematic processes of contemporary culture.

Neoliberalism is coming apart at the seams, which is reason for Zampa to smile with satisfaction! And just as Zampa di Leone announced last year, we are all witnesses to huge chaos of already broken down neoliberalism, to whose breakdown Zampa itself contributed as well, by fighting for over ten years now. And while the heroes and heroines of the DECADE OF FAILURE believed in Marlboro, Coca-Cola’s Santa Claus label and Suzuki, and imagined they would be saved by the invisible hand of regulation of the Serbian art market, now they are merely disappointed candidates for the failed EU project where Angela Merkel is pressing them to pay the interest to Deutsche Bank.

A number of critical actions, interruptions and sabotages of exhibition openings at large art events (like the Istanbul Biennial for example) and museums were carried out by the collective Zampa di Leone.
First big exhibition of this anonymous collective in Serbia was organized by curator and artist Selman Trtovac in July 2008 at the Gallery of the University Library Svetozar Markovic in Belgrade. In the same year, a Zampa exhibition was organized in the SKUC Gallery in Ljubljana, the Open Space Gallery in Vienna and many other places. In 2009 in Hamburg, there were exhibitions at Falkenberg Sammlung and Hamburger Kunsverein. In 2010, an exhibition was opened in Chisinau entitled “Zampa di Moldavione”, which agitated for the development of the Zampa movement in the countries of former Soviet republics.
Zampa di Leone is also the initiator of the platform Art Leaks, which uncovers corruption and improper behavior in the field of cultural production.
http://art-leaks.org/

During this summer, Zampa’s works were exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia in Tallinn.
International art magazine Umelec published some of the most important Zampa’s works in a special review: http://www.divus.cz/umelec/article_page.php?item=1544