Exhibition by Karol Radjiševski as part of the Pride Weekend Skopje 2023

The eleventh edition of the Skopje Pride Weekend opened on June 1 at the MSU, with the exhibition "Remembering the Futures" (Remembering Futures) by the famous artist Karol Radjisevski, which will be open until the end of August.

Radziszewski’s multidisciplinary and archival practice is presented within the exhibition through two long-term projects: the fagazin DIK, a periodical founded, published and edited by Radziszewski since 2005, the only art magazine focused on male homosexuality in Central and Eastern Europe (later expanded to include queer identity), and the Institute for Queer Archives, a para-institution founded in 2015 by Radziszewski. The exhibition presents his series “Portrait Gallery” (2020 – ongoing) which is a continuation of the monumental work “Beginning” (2017), consisting of twenty-two portraits of descendants of non-heteronormative figures from Poland from the last millennium. The specific strategy of merging archival materials with gestures of appropriation, exhibited in the form of prints, paintings, wallpapers and other materials used by Radziszewski, is presented with the series “Sida” (2012 – ongoing), part of the Kiszelend project. “Hydrangea” (2019-2020), another essential work by Radziszewski, is also part of the exhibition. The work draws attention to the significance of “Operation Hyacinth”, a massive police action from 1985-87, aimed at creating a database of all Polish homosexuals. Radziszewski’s engagement with national and state historical narratives and archives and their challenge in the exhibition is placed in dialogue with a radical queer chronopolitics, i.e. the reworking, reimagining, valuing and contextualizing of the memories, experiences, fantasies and images of his queer childhood. This is shown through his wall drawings, part of “1989” (2017–ongoing), for which Radziszewski transfers sketches of childhood drawings of feminist and feminized figures and beings, including religious or government-issued quotes, made during a significant political and social transition into a series of paintings and murals. Given the wide scope of his artistic practices, two of Radziszewski’s films are also being screened at the MSU. The first is “Kiseiland” (2012), a documentary that depicts an encounter with Ryszard Kiszel, the man behind the first East-Central European gayzine, “Philo.” The second film is “My Dear Friend from the Soviet Union” (Mon chéri Soviétique, 2021), made from hundreds of photographs that tell the story of the last Soviet soldiers who left Poland in the 1990s.

Karol Radjisevski (1980, Poland) works with film, photography, installation, painting and creates interdisciplinary projects. His methodology, based on archives, intersects with numerous cultural, religious, social and gender references. Since 2005, he has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine DIK, and in 2015 he founded the Institute for Queer Archives. He uses unique tools in editing materials, combining fact with fantasy, composing documents from fragments of memories; he directs us in a different direction to present alternative traces of memories. He not only reveals individual experiences but also documents the histories of communities, and is not limited to Poland.

Radjisevski's works have been exhibited in institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art in Zahta, the National Gallery of Art, the Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Vienna, Vienna; New Museum, New York; Video Brasil, São Paulo; Museum of Photographic Art, Tokyo; Metelkova Museum of Contemporary Art, Ljubljana; Contemporary Museum in Wrocław and the Stucki Museum in Łódź. He has participated in several international biennials, including PERFORMA 13, New York; 7th Gothenburg Biennial; 4th Prague Biennial and 14th Baltic Triennial. His films have been screened at the T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival, Wrocław (2014, 2012); Warsaw Film Festival (2022, 2019, 2013); the BFI Fleur LGBTQ+ Film Festival in London (2014) and the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (2011); among others. In 2021, Sternberg Press published the book "The Power of Secrets" dedicated to the archiving of Radjiszewski.

This year's thematic focus of the festival is QUEER CHRONOPOLITICS: History, Affects, Utopias, and the issues addressed in this year's edition stem from the multitude of queer theories and historiographies that place the question of time and history at the center of their investigations. The poster and calendar containing the detailed program of the Pride Weekend can be viewed at the following link линк. Каталогот претставува посебно издание што вклучува зборник од култни теориски текстови на темата КВИР-ХРОНОПОЛИТИКИ.

The festival is organized by the Coalition MARGINI and the LGBTI Support Center, and is realized in partnership with TransFormA, Together Stronger, Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje, KSP “Centar-Jadro” and Tiiiit!Inc., and thanks to the generous support of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Open Society Foundation Macedonia, Ministry of Culture of North Macedonia, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Transgender Europe. The exhibition by Karol Radjisevski is realized in partnership with Together Stronger, and is partially supported by the European Union. The performance by Malik Nashad Sharpe is realized in partnership with TransFormA, and is partially supported by Transgender Europe. SHAME! is realized in partnership with Tiiiit!Inc. and is supported by Sweden and the Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation.