Future of Melancholia
Philipp Timischl
Molded
Salon
MoCAB, Belgrade 

Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade (MoCAB)
Pariska 14, 11000 Belgrad

The exhibition Future of Melancholia considers melancholy as a state of mind that matches the complex times in which we are living. This is a phenomenon and a reaction to the challenges of populist developments around the world, in the form of a withdrawal from political and public life and a turn to the private realm. The exhibition particularly looks at how artists explore this heavy-heartedness and introspection that also reflect an inner conflict between tradition and progress. Often, they turn to the surreal and dream-like, which offer opportunities to address the interplay between inner sentiment and the state of the outside world. The resulting works follow a narrative structure that is sometimes very bleak and unfathomable, but can also be humorous and hopeful. This melancholic sentiment is the focus of this exhibition, which presents historical, modernist, and contemporary positions from both Serbia and Austria both in Belgrade and Graz in three chapters shown almost simultaneously: at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade (Gallery-Legacy of Milica Zorić & Roduljub Čolaković and Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art) and at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark (HK Styria) in Graz.

In a second exhibition, Philipp Timischl’s solo show Molded in the MoCAB Salon presents a series of new paintings hat explore the phenomenon of melancholy that is so tangible amongst a younger generation today, as well as drawing on the idea of ​“hauntology,” according to which the present-day and its artistic production are characterized by ​“ghosts”: endless loops of cultural elements from the past, leading to the cancellation of the future within a permanently repetitive present. Timischl’s works thus also witness the insecurities of our time that are reflected in Future of Melancholia.