The exhibition “TV Gallery” has been conceived to show material from the Belgrade Television programme "TV Gallery”, which was broadcast on the Yugoslav TV network from 1984 – 1991. The exhibition deals with cultural policy, conditions of art and cultural production, public television and production and broadcasting of video art in the former Yugoslavia.

Curator Dunja Blazevic was the author of the "TV Gallery" television show. The beginnings of this show emerged from her involvement as the director of the Student's Cultural Center gallery in Belgrade in the '70s. She transformed this gallery into a space encouraging artistic experiments and strong international cooperation and collaboration among the artists from the different cities of the then Yugoslavia. In 1981, Blazevic became the editor of contemporary art segment for the TV shows "Friday at 22" and "Other Art" at the national TV station TV Beograd. These regular segments grew into a monthly show called "TV Gallery", which was broadcast on the Yugoslav TV network from 1984 - 1991. "TV Gallery" became an unparalleled example of interdisciplinary, socially engaged artistic and curatorial practice on public television.

The 4 organisations who worked together to realise ALMOSTREAL stage 1 have put together an exhibition about the "TV Gallery" programme. As part of their joint research project into the contemporary art of the '70s and '80s, WHW, kuda, PRELOM and SCCA/pro.ba are looking into the motivations of the 'neo-avantgarde' parctices of the '70s and '80s which gave rise to the possibility of the 'TV Gallery' series. The contemporary art movement of this time encompassed democratization, the abandonment of traditional artistic spaces and traditional artistic media, developing tactical use of media, new ways of participation, collectivity and a decisive shift away from the emphasis on a singular author. Television was understood by these artists as as 'natural' environment for video art; gallery presentation of video was a considered a secondary option. Today, that idea, or hope, is almost completely abolished and forgotten.

From today's perspective, the preserved tapes, stored in the archives of TV Beograd, are a materialised set of ideals and experiemnts that would not be possible in contemporary media space of public television. Rather than being watched by a braod and interested public, the form and content of the "TV Gallery" show would be dismissed as being elitist, noncommercial, uninteresting.

It is a poignant paradox that the 'TV Gallery" which originally attracted a mass media public, can only return today in a 'closed' and 'elitist' space of a white-cube.

"In the world of Big Brother and programmed social oblivion, 'obsolete' media space of a gallery reaffirms itself as one of a rare spaces of freedom and experiment, a place of reminiscence that social and media reality are not unambiguously marked with politics nor economy. Although socio-political context enabled these shows, nothing would have happened without initiative, creativity, and even boldness of editors, directors and artists that produced the shows and had clear ideas about theory and ideology of media, art and personal action."