The photograph, Ministry of Pain, by the Belgrade artist Siniša Ilić was realized as a part of the play/project Actress (Work) in Progress (authors: Siniša Ilić, Bojan Đorđev, Sena Đorović), and originates on the intersection of the novel by a famous writer Dubravka Ugrešić and a scene from the performance Giszelle by Eszter Salamon i Xavier le Roi. By borrowing the title from the book which questions the topic of exile, transition, guilt, forgetting and the right to remember in the domestic area, inspired by the painting of questioning the "western" body, its movement and transformation in the dance play, including the imported, recognizable visual momentum/design of the not so distant past of this country and things that happen every day, Ilić creates an interesting intersection of several contexts, which focus on the questions from economic transition and global capital to migrations and human trafficking.

Siniša Ilić

Born in 1977 in Serbia. Completed postgraduate studies of painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. Last year he won the most important prize for young figurative artists Dimitrije Bašićević Mangelo, and he is famous in the public for his unique drawing work and performing actions of performing his works in galleries, but also because he cooperates on numerous theatre/performance projects as a performer, co–author, co–creator of the concept and/or set designer. Ilić is one of the founders and members of theory–artistic platform "Teorija koja Hoda" (A Theory that Walks). He exhibited on numerous independent and group exhibitions in Belgrade, Vršac, Bucharest, Helsinki, Rijeka, of which the most recent are: Off-Center Femininities (Regards from Serbia and Montenegro), Kimmel Center, New York (2007); Drunk on Dreams, Fruehsorge Gallery, Berlin (2007); Near Dark, Modern Art Museum Salon, Belgrade (2006); Situated Self Confused, Compassionate and Conflictual, Modern Art Museum Belgrade, Tennis Palace Museum, Helsinki (2005) etc. He was awarded the Acknowledgment for Stage Set Design, Drawing and Illustration. Artist in residence: ISCP, New York, USA, 2006, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany, 2004/5.