The comprehensive, international group exhibition No Feeling Is Final. The Skopje Solidarity Collection will revolve around the Museum of Contemporary Art’s unusual collection of modern works, how it came into being as well as the historical and political context that allowed for such an extraordinary project.
After the massive earthquake that hit Skopje (then Yugoslavia) in 1963, there was a huge effort to help rebuild the devastated city as a large-scale gesture of international solidarity. As part of the rebuilding process, the decision was made to establish a museum of contemporary art. Through the vast network of the United Nations, a call for donations was issued which resulted in thousands of works being sent to Skopje from artists all around the world. The museum building itself was a donation from Poland.
The collection of the MoCA Skopje represents a time capsule of international art at a moment when modernism was still in its prime. It brings together works by major (predominantly male) figures such as Alexander Calder, Georg Baselitz, Christo & Jeanne Claude, Ion Grigorescu, David Hockney, Alex Katz, Sol LeWitt, Meret Oppenheim, Pablo Picasso, Bridget Riley, and Niki de Saint Phalle, as well as much lesser known but often fascinating works by artists from the former East and Global South.