PERMANENT PRESENCE CURATED BY NEBOJSA SERIC SHOBA JUNE 1 – 24, 2006 OPENING RECEPTION AND PERFORMANCE: JUNE 1, 2006, 6-8PM

Artists: Belma Arnautovic / Ervin Babic / Lee Balzano / Jeehui Chang / Elila Cmajcanin / Ibro Hasanovic / Jasmina Izetbegovic / Adnan Jasika / Arman Kulasic / Damir Niksic / Demis Sinancevic / Jasenka Vukelic / Cristina Sigmond

White Box presents Permanent Presence, a collaborative project with the America-Bosnia Cultural Foundation. Curated by Seric Shoba, the exhibition features twelve young emerging cutting-edge Bosnian and American artists. The opening reception will include a special performance by JeeHui Chang held at White Box on June 1, 2006 from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Permanent Presence brings together the work of artists from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United States of America, in order to explore the borders of knowledge and language, different art concepts and ideas, while discussing the advantages and disadvantages of both societies. Enormous competition, extreme commercialism, expensive costs of living and production, unreal feelings of sudden success, are just a few symptoms of the contemporary art life in the West. Lack of information and opportunities, surreal and shaken expectations for the future, contradictory rewritings of the past, and idealization of the outside world seem to dominate the life in the post-war society of Bosnia.

Permanent Presence takes the approach not only to juxtapose these two opposite sociological and cultural profiles of Bosnia and the United States, but moreover to disclose the similarity of challenges both societies impose on their young emerging and contemporary artists. Sometimes, the lack of information can be as devastating as the excess of information, while at other times the lack of information can empower the artist’s imagination and creative strategies. Permanent Presence shows how abundance and deprivation equally lead to a state of denying both the impact of the past as well as the impact future perspectives hold.