BELGRADE – SEPTEMBER 2016: Biljana Đurđević – artista seen in fornt of one of her painings exhibited at annual contemporary art exhibition. (photo by Ziyah Gafic)

Biljana Djurdjević /

Based in Belgrade, Serbia, Biljana Djurdjević is an artist whose work in a range of media, including painting, drawing and animation, reflects the pressing concerns of our times. It has been exhibited in solo shows or group shows in her country and in many other countries of the world: Germany, Poland, Albania, Greece, Italy, Spain, USA, Australia, Israel, Sweden, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Russia, China, etc.

The title of the first of these paintings – Instrument of Activity – as well as its subject draws on Aristotle’s definition of slave as a living tool. The works on display address human apathy, the lack of will to break out of the newly constructed world in which one lives in order to produce. Production feeds a systemic Hydra which penetrates all aspects of life, imposing consumerism as the essence of the modern man. In this process, the creator of the product is simultaneously its consumer, pre-coded to be a perpetual slave to the system in order to be a part of it. The long-lasting indoctrination through the media, which is the topic of the second painting, complementary to the first, is seen by her as the fundamental instrument of manipulation which unifies all, regardless of the presumed status of each.