Kalbträgerin (2017)

Overview

Aleksandra Domanović works with sculpture, video and born-digital content, shedding light on the meaning of images and information shifting according to different contexts and historical weights. Her work expands on the discoveries of women scientists and depictions of gender in science fiction and the history of technological development.

Domanović’s sculpture Kalbträgerin (2017) expands on one of her main themes in her ‘Votive’ series (2016-present), which looks at current scientific research and development in breeding certain traits in cattle, such as the lack of horns in bulls. These ideas are translated into sculptures that are computer modelled, 3D printed and cast in synthetic plaster. Through Kalbträgerin, the artist raises questions that subtly and poetically debate norms and the concept of beauty outside norms. The calf atop a votive stela can be seen as a transformed depiction of the Greek Moschophoros (Calf Bearer) of the sixth century BC, found on the Acropolis of Athens in what is called the Perserschutt (the rubble of the architecture and sculptures destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC).

Pomegranate (2018) is based on the Ancient Greek Korai, devotional models of women holding offerings to the gods. In this series of works, the arms, hands and offerings of the figures are modelled and 3D printed in Kevlar, aluminium and polyurethane—cyborg limbs on box-shaped bodies. The limbs can be removed and stored in custom-made foam spaces on the back of the bodies so that the works can be easily transported and exhibited in many places. The hands in the series are replicas of the Belgrade Hand, designed by pioneering Serbian scientist Rajko Tomović for amputees returning after World War II. The figure in Pomegranate (2018) clutches an offering that might have been found in the original Greek sculptures.