''Traces of THE PLOT'' - Nemanja Nikolić

Traces of THE PLOT

The video work ''The Plot'' deals with the history of the Cold War, film as a means of propaganda, and the influence of popular culture of that era.

The video consists of around 5,000 drawings made on the pages of books, encyclopedias, and maps from the Yugoslav socialist period, animated frame by frame into a film. During the years of working on this project, I was often forced to change the location of my studio, so the work was created in the buildings of Bigz, Jugošped (the former Milan Vapa Paper Factory), and the Old Sugar Factory.

By projecting the work onto these buildings and their surrounding environment, I aimed to connect the process of creation with the material itself, establishing a link between the film’s content and architecture as a silent witness of political, cultural, and economic transformations.

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Nemanja Nikolić (1987) graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Department of Painting (2010), where he also completed his PhD (2019). He works as Assistant Professor at the same faculty and is the initiator of U10 Art Space, an independent artist-run platform supporting young contemporary artists.

Since 2010, he has held solo exhibitions at the Cultural Center of Belgrade, Gallery Dix9 Hélène Lacharmoise in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro in Podgorica, ERD Gallery in Seoul, Rima Gallery in Belgrade and Kragujevac, B2 Gallery in Belgrade, U10 Art Space, among others. He has also taken part in numerous group shows, including Caixa Forum in Madrid and Barcelona, Kunsthal KadE in Amersfoort, Künstlerhaus in Vienna, the 56th, 57th, 60th October Salon in Belgrade, the 20th Biennial of Art in Pančevo, Cinémathèque Française in Paris, among others.

He has received several awards, including the Special Award of the 60th October Salon for the group project Working Spaces (2024), the Drawing Award from the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia (2021), and the Vladimir Veličković Foundation Drawing Award (2011).

Nikolić’s works are part of private and public collections such as the ABN AMRO Collection (Amsterdam), The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (Los Angeles), WAP Foundation (Seoul), Ekard Collection (The Hague), JMS Collection (Paris), the October Salon Collection (Belgrade), Wiener Städtische Collection, and the Telenor Collection (Belgrade).

He lives and works in Belgrade.