The Last Supper

The Last Supper by Biljana Đurđević deals with the general weakness of the society triggered by increasing instrumentalization of a human being by the industry, technology and the media, both globally and locally. The exhibition continues on the multy-year project Case Study which includes painting, animation and a graphic novel.

In Case Study the focus is on the exploited, tired body – our common, global body. 

The Last Supper is a postmodern, almost epic project, devoid of mytholoy and heroic deeds. The protagonists have left the stage, and the narrative is muted by the disappearance of the energy of the modern man. The space is occupied by a bunk bed, chairs, tables, that is, household items. However, the word household sounds too warm, it is associated with home, while these items are cold, they could belong to schools, hospitals, factories, psychiatric and other institutions which could resemble a prison, and of course belong to the prison itself. The artist here refers to the Foucault’s work Discipline and Punish (1975), an account of the historical change of punishment in Western systems where the author follows changes in society that led to prison as the dominant form of punishment, and connects the prison itself  with differen mechanisms of control, the institutions such as schools, hospitals, factories or barracs. 

Black and white, naturalistically intoned images act on the observer as ghostly warnings, precisely because of the deviation created by the power of painting, because in this case the experience is not presented directly (Adorno). Precisely by that indirectness, which is also achieved by the absence of color, the artist yearns to restore the feeling of embodiment to the modern man, all in order to, by using this achromatic painting, warn us about the totalitarian aspects of the neoliberal world in which we live and encourage us to start changes.
Neva Lukić