In his exhibition EVERYTHING IS CONTENT, Igor Simić examines the conditions of contemporary image production in the field of tension between technology, belief, and materiality. The starting point is the observation that in the digital age, all media are converging into a rhizomatic network: narratives are losing their hierarchies, becoming both banal and sacred, while content is having a comparable effect on culture as climate change is having on the planet.
The paintings on display are created in cobalt blue, oil, and candle soot. The choice of materials refers to historical, technological, and geopolitical contexts: cobalt, as a central raw material in modern electronic devices, connects images, ideas, and living beings to exploitable content; its mining, especially in the Congo, reveals inscribed forms of sacrifice and exploitation. Oil painting appears here as a technological invention that enters into dialogue with the aesthetics of the digital blue screen.
The motif of fire runs through the works as a central element. Candle flames refer to religious symbolism, martyrdom, and faith, as well as to the pyrotechnical basis of civilization and industrialization. Industrial templates, such as shipping containers, link the sacred with the everyday. Against the backdrop of fossil fuels, which remain dominant even in the information age, fire also evokes a quietly apocalyptic dimension.
The paintings on display are created in cobalt blue, oil, and candle soot. The choice of materials refers to historical, technological, and geopolitical contexts: cobalt, as a central raw material in modern electronic devices, connects images, ideas, and living beings to exploitable content; its mining, especially in the Congo, reveals inscribed forms of sacrifice and exploitation. Oil painting appears here as a technological invention that enters into dialogue with the aesthetics of the digital blue screen.
The motif of fire runs through the works as a central element. Candle flames refer to religious symbolism, martyrdom, and faith, as well as to the pyrotechnical basis of civilization and industrialization. Industrial templates, such as shipping containers, link the sacred with the everyday. Against the backdrop of fossil fuels, which remain dominant even in the information age, fire also evokes a quietly apocalyptic dimension.
Simić’s works read as a contemporary reflection on kinship, material, and combustion–an artistic position that carries philosophical references from Spinoza to Simone Weil into the 21st century.