Marija Ćalić

The title of the cycle of photographs Stern-Berg is a German syntagm denoting a Belgrade hill with a similar name – Zvezdara, with an astronomical observatory built there in the mid-20s. Various references are included in the title, such as the famous novel The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg) by Thomas Mann, and the overall experience from the concentrated social changes of the 20^th century. The entire equipment for the observatory for the capital of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes arrived from Germany, as war reparations after the First World War.

The location and character of the observatory served for photographic discoveries. Architecture, interiors and measuring instruments participate in further building on the archaeology of modernism, layers of memory and sensory relations. The photographs include temporal junctions – sequences from the German film Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond, 1929) by Fritz Lang, as well as the legacy of the style and spirit of the twenties. By merging the understanding of visible and non-visible, dialogical spatial-temporal perceptions are achieved. Through them, the inner experiences of observing the material world and psychological tensions are codified. In unravelling of the recorded and in relation with the film spaces, a new scenic quality of the photographic image arises.
Nikola Šuica

Marija Ćalić graduated from the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade. She attended a photography course at the St Martin’s School of Art, London. Member of ULUPUDS (Applied Artists and Designers Association of Serbia), Photography Section. Selected solo exhibitions: Info stanar, Youth Centre Gallery, Belgrade (2017); Cache Memory, Bartelsona Gallery, Belgrade; Elective Affinities, Sales Art Gallery Beograd, (both in 2016); Nothing Is Left to Tell, Remont Gallery, Belgrade; My Home, FLU Gallery (Faculty of Fine Arts), Belgrade (both in 2015); The Spell of the Past, Nova Gallery, Belgrade (2014); Post Memory, University Library “S. Marković”, Belgrade; Miserere/Psalm 51, Biennial of Arts, National Museum of Pančevo (both in 2012). Selected group exhibitions: Micro Narratives, Musee d’art moderne d’Saint Ettienne, France (2008); Micro- Narratives – 48^th October Salon, Belgrade (2007); Closed Flows, Belgrade City Museum – the Residence of Princess Ljubica, Belgrade (2015).