Marko Stamenković – A FOREST MAN WITH A TALE

Marko Stamenković (1977) is an art historian and transcultural theorist with a strong interest in the decolonial politics of race, ethnicity, and sexuality. Over the last decade he has been working primarily in the field of contemporary visual arts as a freelance curator, critic, and writer focused on the intersection of visual thinking with social theories, political philosophies, and cultural practices of the marginalised and the oppressed. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from Gent University (Belgium) where he worked on questions of sacrifice, self-sacrifice in protest, and suicide to explore the relationship between human mortality and politico-economic powers on the darker side of democracy. His dissertation (Suicide Cultures: Theories and Practices of Radical Withdrawal, defended in 2014) offered nonorthodox insights into thanatopolitical philosophy as a decolonial epistemic option from a perspective of the global South. His international guest-lectures include universities and art venues in New York City, Sofia, Tirana, Cetinje, Tallinn, Gent, Vienna, Gothenburg, Pretoria, Tehran, Istanbul, Mexico City, Oslo, Alger, Dublin, Brno, Yerevan, Recife, and Alexandria. They follow an engaging style that has more to do with the discussion-oriented format, incorporating context and quotidian case studies, rather than repetition and memorization of facts. His most recent exhibition projects include: Brigita Antoni – The Moon is Wet and Wild (Montenegro, 2019), A Body Burning (Croatia, 2019), Fatlum Doci – Signs (Serbia & Croatia, 2019); Sead Kazanxhiu – Nests (Albania, 2018); Egon Van Herreweghe – Heidi’s Delight (Belgium, 2017), To Die Out Laughing (Bulgaria, 2017), All Joy Wants Eternity (Albania, 2017), and Vlasta Delimar – Put Your Faith in Women (Austria, 2016). He is a member of AICA Croatia and IKT – International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art.