Theme Description - Social

Theme: Social

Theme Social represents the extension of the work that emerged from the cycle To Float (2007-08). This theme started to develop in 2011 and was accomplished through the works such as: Rumors, Face, Social, Erased, Matter, Wraith, Conversation, Razor, Selection, Exhaust, etc. Social series is composed of photographies, prints, installations which employ their form and motif to indicate the personification of a monument that indicates the memory. The works are dominated by thick black stains, shadows, silhouettes, faceless portraits, cloned bodiless figures, abstract forms, and the like. These forms represent wraiths of generation and destiny flows, depicting a man or the life aspects of an individual through the lens of various social impacts and the relation of a man's calvary and suffering to the current individual and mass occurrences. The people/figures/dummies displayed should, both alegorically and symbolically, impel the viewer to connect and reconsider his/her own place in the society which dwells in permanent crisis on a global scale and whose values have frequently been corrupted.

The works from the theme Social have developed visual and spatial subject of tragic allienation that has been rhetorically amplified by the absence of life. Instead of aesthetic, art, cultural, or political statements, the works show wasted and faded images based upon the depiction of a man where the presence of the man in a spatial concept could be anticipated even if the figure is missing. The space which puts on hold all the moments that constantly reconsider the position of a man in our society speaks of incurable and long-term state, but also of the time of anticipation with a tone of general spatial abstinence. An insight into this, currently quite usual depersonalization and serial production of ourselves, which depends on instantaneous needs, creates and reduces an individual to a mere consumer, yearner, aggressor, victim, voter, etc. The faces composed of stains and transparent layers with no details represent a portrait module of people without the character who render and suggest memories. Caption texts represent sequences of mundane thoughts which continuously express the moment of dominant misunderstanding and roaming.

The text content is made of extracts from the Primo Levi's book If This Is a Man. The blend of Levi's text and the depictions of people in the crowd that reflects the current state imply the methods of exhaustion of humanity and identity that have been taken away by different methods of rule and repression. These are the figures/people who lack identity, a specific image, and a singular character. The works incorporate the criteria of coexistence which also incites a dialogue and creates possibilities for the viewer to complete them.

The selection of texts from the cycle Social:

Have you truly existed?
Have you experienced something or have you denied that to someone?
It is desirable to suffer from trauma which you spread to ourselves!

[1] edited text (Erased)

It concers the destiny,
premonition and conveyed messages between two worlds.
We reflect on the hint or remember the past!

[2] edited text (Rumors)

They cannot die, which is a retribution,
since death was the most inviting prospect of any man.
We levitate and heartlessly,
upset the reasons for living.

[3] edited text (Social)

There is a clue somewhere in between,
somewhere in the space between front and behind.
The time remembers this distance,
this voice will return to us.

[4] edited text (Face)


The work Selection represents a group of people in a crowd - dummies without a face, dressed in casual male clothes, frozen in a confused and demented state, interrupted in a doing or an act. These are the figures of people who no longer have an identity, a specific image, and a singular character. Selection expresses visual and spatial dramaturgy of “tragic allenation“ that is being amplified by the absence of life inside its visible, corporal, and human domain. The work incorporates the criteria of coexistence which also incites a dialogue and creates possibilities for the viewer to complete them. The people/figures/dummies displayed should, both alegorically and symbolically, impel the viewer to connect and reconsider his/her own place in the society which dwells in permanent crisis on a global scale and whose values have frequently been corrupted. These revived bodiless forms, which arose from the time we used to live in,  represent wraiths of generation and destiny flows, depicting an exposed man or the life aspects of an individual through the lens of various social impacts.

Dummies/figures can be sorted in a group in a regular order, randomly, in opposite directions as a connotation of roaming, waiting, paranoia, confusion, or silence, apathy, utopia, etc. On the right arms of some dummies, from the multitude of others, there are insriptions attached to what seemingly looks like a brand label.

We know how we look.
We keep looking at each other.
It's embarrasing. We know that.
We are tired, standing and waiting.
We were looking at each other.
There is something else.
We slowly start speaking.
We do not dare lift our eyes to look at one another.
There is nowhere to look in a mirror, but our appearance stands in front of us.
A hundred of miserable and sordid puppets.
If we talk, they don't listen. When they listen, they don't understand.
We are looking for a friendly face.
As always, there are plenty of rumors.
It's my turn.
We fall into the ground.
We wander among people.

Edited text (Primo Levi, If This Is a Man)


Erased is composed of four posed dummies in their whole-length with their heads bowed and leaned against four upholstered panels. Dummies/figures have no face or identity. They are people subdued by the unexpected and existing situation. The panels are made of old fabric – sheets with usable traces, stains, and the surface of the fabric is merged with text messages. The text and the figure are in direct, physical, and spiritual connection with the interpretation of the general condition a man is a part of. This installation implies tragic moments and the weariness of human spirit caused by different unpredictable circumstances.

The texts attached:

  1. Everything was as silent as in certain dream sequences. We had expected something more apocalyptic, but everyone was quiet and calm. We are tired, standing and waiting for something to happen. But nothing's happening. There's still nothing going on. Time passes...
  2. Our faces are strange. They shaved our bodies. Here we are...naked, sheared, and alone. We slowly start speaking. Everyone's got a question, but   nobody has   the answer. We walk...talk...we do not dare lift our eyes. There is nowhere to look in a mirror, but our appearance stands in front of us. Hundreds of beardless, pale faces. Hundreds of miserable and sordid puppets. We own nothing. If we talk, they don't listen. When they listen, they  don't understand.
  3. This tune...so familiar, sentimental. So strange, here. We are looking at each   other. A group of puppets, numb, made of bones with no joints. We are wandering among the crowd...looking for a friendly face. Some of us are yellow, some grey. We cannot see what's next to us? Staring at the light, saying nothing...we no longer think. We fall into the ground...it's embarrasing. We know that.
  4. They are counting us...we wait...they are counting us again. We wait...we've been standing for ten hours, naked for six hours. We were looking at each other. We know how we look. We keep looking at each other, and sometimes we even see our reflection in a window. And there's our odor. In the beginning   we heard it once, twice...many times now...as always, there are a lot of rumors...the young say they will choose the elderly. The healthy say they will choose the sick. There is something else...

Adapted text (Primo Levi, If This Is a Man)


Suit Jacket represents sequences of a suit jacket captions in different positions. Suit jackets, as a whole, build dramatic extracorporeal form that implies the presence or the absence of human body. Those sequences of a suit jacket, stopped in motion, display various forms of tension provoked by the stance of the society towards an individual. A patchwork suit jacket is displayed in the state of spatial floating implying wasted and faded act. Those forms represent exposed man or the life aspects of an individual through the lens of various social impacts. Hence the existing state of what is left behind speaks of fundamental desolation and the loss of individuality. The introduced forms of a suit jacket in different amorph scenes express methaphysical movement within the space itself. A piece of clothing symbolizes the state between life and death in a space which levitates between the rejected and lost.


Face I displays faceless portraits on the oval paintings, faces who entirely lack character. These faces composed of stains and transparent layers with no details represent a portrait module of people who continuously reexamine their memories. The portrait in a suit jacket as a personification of the status and constant memory of the time, the lost, the ruined, in a form of a monument, speaks of fundamental desolation and the loss of individuality.


Rumor is a work on the oval paintings that displays thick black stain, a shadow, a silhouette of a thrown away and deserted suit jacket. Amorph and dramatic postures of this form express general spatial symbolics of body exclusion. The abstract form of the suit, jacket, rag, or a cloth invites a memory of the body that is not there, but can only be indicated. Hence the existing state of deserted or folded suit jacket communicates the fundamental desolation and the loss of individuality.


Social is composed of figures made of pieces of clothing (trousers, suit jackets, draperies) in a form of a human body. These elevated and revived bodiless forms of people as a pair or an individual arose from the time we used to live in and represent wraiths of generation and destiny flows. They depict an exposed “man“ or the life aspects of an individual through the lens of various social impacts.

  • goran despotovski, face, digital print
  • goran despotovski, face, digital print
  • goran despotovski, face, digital print
  • goran despotovski, face, digital print
  • goran despotovski, face, digital print
  • goran despotovski, face, digital print
  • goran despotovski, face, digital print

FACE

The theme, Social
Digital print 2013

Face I displays faceless portraits on the oval paintings, faces who entirely lack character. These faces composed of stains and transparent layers with no details represent a portrait module of people who continuously reexamine their memories. The portrait in a suit jacket as a personification of the status and constant memory of the time, the lost, the ruined, in a form of a monument, speaks of fundamental desolation and the loss of individuality.
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