First monographic catalogue dedicated to the works of multidisciplinary artist Darja Bajagić who culls her imagery from fan-gore magazines, true-crime TV shows, fetish websites, obscure online forums, and hidden chat rooms tucked away in the darker reaches of the Web.
For her first institutional solo, Darja Bajagić turns to the murky terrain where real and staged violence bleed into each other with an ease both unsettling and alluring. This has been a key undercurrent to a practice that spans painting, sculpture, video, and installation. Following the lure of the fringes, the artist culls her imagery from fan-gore magazines, true-crime TV shows, fetish websites, obscure online forums, and hidden chat rooms tucked away in the darker reaches of the Web. She handles these disparate source materials with a dose of humor, working them into densely layered compositions that are at once confrontational and poetically fragile. Bajagić explores loaded questions of embodiment, viewership, and power relations, all the while interrogating our need to hold images accountable.
Published following the eponymous exhibition at Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien, Graz, Austria, from June 11, to September 8, 2016.
Darja Bajagić was born in 1990 in Podgorica, Montenegro, and raised in Egypt and the United States. In 2014, she became the first national of Montenegro to graduate with a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale University School of Art.
Bajagić explores the ambivalence of the image, that is, dualistic representation, symbolism, and meaning. Referencing a diverse range of sources, such as dark-web sites, news media content, and religious histories, to name a few, her works—complex iconographical representations that are composed of layers of contemplated phenomena—unravel and develop before us in stages.
Selected institutional solo exhibitions include Goregeous, Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France (2020); Born Losers, Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (2018); Unlimited Hate, Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien (KM-), Graz, Austria (2016). Selected institutional group exhibitions have taken place at National Gallery Prague, Czech Republic (2021); Casino Luxembourg (2020); Futura Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, Czech Republic (2019); Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani de Palma, Spain (2018); Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania (2018); LUMA Westbau, Zürich (2017, 2015, 2014); Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (2015); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2015); Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (2014); Museum of Contemporary Art of Oaxaca (2014); Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), Vienna (2013). Her work has been included in the 42nd Montenegrin Salon of Visual Arts, Cetinje, Mexico (2020); the 57th October Salon, Belgrade, Serbia (2018); and the 13th Baltic Triennial of International Art, Vilnius, Lithuania (2018).
