ANDREJ FILEV

born 1973 in Belgrade, although educated as an academic painter, his medium is photography. Inspired by people and situations within the urban public space, he mainly operates with snapshot aestetics  and merges analog and digital technologies. His work is internationally recognised, awarded and was exhibited all over the planet. Filev is as well one of the editors of the largest streetphoto internet forum Hardcore Street Photography and one of the initiators of the Belgrade Raw photo collective.

Visit his photo blog at www.flickr.com/andrej_filev

OPENING – VERNISSAGE: 3rd of June 2010.
DISCUSSIONS – PERFORMANCES.
FINISSAGE: 11th of July 2010.

‘Lepota Rada’, The Beauty of Work or in german language ‘Die Schönheit der Arbeit’

is the first exhibition in our new founded Gallery. The space which will contain our Gallery/Cultural Center is in a quite bad condition and was used as storage space for a construction company. Next to the Gallery, there is our small Cafe. Both the Cafe and the storage space were established and run by workers migrants from former Yugoslavia in the last decade.  The Cafe was and is a frequent meeting place for mainly workers, as it opens every day at 06:00 in the morning, where they meet for their first coffee before going to work, and return in the eve for the last beer before going to sleep.

Many of that migrant workers, have been forced, due to the economic crisis and influenced by rigid residence or migration regulations to reinvent themselves as one-man companies. Often they have to collaborate to receive an order, which later is executed as a result of long lasting networks and exchange of knowledge, a.e. where to get the cheapest materials for reconstruction.

Andrej Filev, who is an internationally awarded photographer, as well survived the difficult years in Belgrade, by working on different construction sites. Lepota Rada is an process orientated exhibition, which tends to include the migrant working class guests into the reconstruction of the venue, share and exchange knowledge and experiences, document the process, and generates a space where questions of every day life are included within the fields of fine art and culture.