For a number of years one of the must/implied segments of the visual program of Belgrade Summer Festival has been to introduce the artistic works on billboards. Media that has become inevitable element in the creation of visual identity of a modern city, ours as well, has been recognized in the modern art practice as a challenging presentational form which opens new communication possibilities for the work of art, first and foremost, in terms of expanding its target, or better, receptive audience, i.e. the newly formed way for an artist to address not only the artistically oriented audience, but a common viewer, pedestrian or a driver as well. However, a much more challenging moment that has appeared in the use of one such, specific means of mass communication, is the question of what will be its contents, what will point out the author’s idea, attitude, message in the sea of promotional pictures and slogans. Not an easy task at all, if we start from the fact that our sense of sight is greatly adapted to various advertising visual and verbal solutions, and that our mind, even that of the most sophisticated viewer, is primarily trained for the insight into copyright mambo–jumbo and uncovering who or what is being advertised, propagated. What seems for the artist and his work in such a situation as the only space for the visibility, act, influence, is the space of intervention, making things unusual, criticism, provocativeness, space that arises some questions different from the simple ones "Who?" or "What", the space that initiates a different decoding, thoughts, decisions. When we speak about artistic billboards, we in fact speak about a special relationship formed with the viewer, his/her attention, his/her wishes, needs, fears, we speak about a sensation which is not fast and trivial, but lasting and its strength lies in the meeting with the unexpected, which does not offer a twelve-month deferred payment and does not promise a remarkable skin; which is there to state, react upon reality or step out of it for a moment. By its nature as a media, artistic billboard becomes a part of a public discourse and, especially in a transforming society it has the potential to be a vital part of building the consciousness of the community about the social, life and cultural questions, but about the importance of the visual culture as well. Such an artistic intervention, so to speak, becomes necessary in everyday cultivating, cutting the monotony of our city, visual, mental landscape colonized with the paintings of corporational smiles, perfectly built, epilated bodies and "forced" happiness.

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This year’s selection of artistic works on billboards includes visual works by nine domestic and foreign authors of the younger and middle generations. Realized in different media (drawing, cartoon, photograph, photo document, design), almost all the works will be presented for the first time in the form of a billboard. What we have before us are the works characterized, first and foremost, by a strong visual content, and by that an easy and quick occupation of the viewer’s attention, which is a result of the fact that such "content" hasn’t worn off, i.e. its isolation from the everyday exposition of the various pictures, graphical and verbal teasers. Unified by current thematic concept of the Festival dedicated to the still present dilemma of the young generation here in the first place: to stay or to leave (of course, the characteristics and sore spot of all transforming societies in transition), questioning of the individuals and groups about the need for a change, dislocation, belief that somewhere else is better, the choice of works of art on billboards as a whole is not guided by the wish to directly speak on the topic, in the sense of some kind of "localization" of the creative thinking to either option. The selected works are, first of all, representation and visualization of some of the aspects of thinking, considering, decisive moments, emotional states of an individual or collective in situations of either stating the existing, viewing the desired, wanting the (un)expected and they start general question about the identity, being special, and universality, incapability, indecisiveness, determination, habits, politics and emotions, prejudices, going away and coming back, living abroad, pessimism and optimism, past and future.

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Special thanks to: Аrtists, Studio Wurm, Billboart Gallery Europe, Mira Keratova, Una Popović, Aleksandra Mirčić, Maja Ćirić, Marija Radoš