Making the Sound

October 2019
Interactive installation
small Project: Three Passages
Passage intervention, City of Banja Luka

Identifying the passage with the urban lifestyle, with this interactive installation I wanted to act on the space and not impair its functionality and give it a whole new meaning. The shifting platform aims to destabilize and ultimately repositions the point of human perception. It is a critique of today’s self-destructive society.

Disappearing – Emerging

26th October 2019
Installation
Museum of Contemporary Art of Republic of Srpska
Photo: Nemanja Mićević

It is a work of memorial character, the basis of which a reminder of this tragic event is, but also which serves as a symbolic link between the two extremes – suffering and new beginning, the past and the future, disappearing and emerging. This artistic intervention on the museum building pays tribute to the victims of the earthquake on one hand, and on the other, it focuses on the institution that emerged immediately after this tragedy, thanks to the “Action of Solidarity of the Fine Arts of Yugoslavia and the World”, which collected approximately 750 works of art that formed the basis for the founding of the then Art Gallery and made up its initial holdings. The “Disappearing – Emerging” installation consists of fifteen pillars set up to “support” the building of the museum, referencing fifteen earthquake victims, symbolizing the original fragility of man confronted with the destructive forces of nature, as well as the paradox of the life-and-death cycle, which in this case resulted in the birth of a new temple of culture. The devastation caused by a natural disaster and the triumph of humanity manifested through the “Action of Solidarity” are an unusual and very striking combination of life and art, spiritual and material, and the creation of new energy arising from the timeless competition of man and nature.

The contrast of the wooden pillars of the installation and solid walls of the former Railway Station building, undamaged in the 1969 earthquake, contributes to the monumentality of this work of art, which can be seen as a synthesis of fragments of the past and aspirations to restore awareness of the present moment and individual responsibility to society and the community.

Installation “Disappearing – Emerging” was realized with the support of the City of Banja Luka and “Elektrokrajina”, which provided the necessary logistical support for the realization of this monumental installation.

No Big Deal, Mom

14th June – 29th July 2019
Museum of Contemporary Art of Republic of Srpska – Gallery Plus
Solo Show
Photo: Nemanja Mićević

The exhibition ‘No Big Deal, Mom’ is a digest of Dragoslav Malinić’s preoccupations and explorations during his time as an undergraduate student at the Academy of Arts of Banja Luka University. Staged at Gallery Plus, the exhibition is part of the prestigious award presented by the Museum of the Republic of Srpska for the best end-of-year work of senior students.

The exhibition, divided into two parts, presents Malinić’s art as a wide variety of artistic expression. In terms of production, his interests range from digital illustration to intermedia art.

The first part comprises illustrations, from those made using the traditional technique of charcoal on paper, to digital illustrations. Here, the artist arranged cubist shapes executed in vivid colours and suggestive of female bodies across digitally made illustrations, demonstrating excellent control of composition, form and concept, as he uses cutting-edge technology to produce the final result. Malinić proves to be just as adept when it comes to the traditional art of illustration. His sketches may be observed separately, as stand-alone works, but taken together, they make up a composite, practically organic whole.

The second part of the exhibition is a conceptual installation consisting of works ‘Ode to Mother’ and ‘Series’. They are the results of the artist’s work in the Intermedia Art module, where he experimented with conceptual art. ‘Series’ is a group of 25 photographs that show metaphorically issues connected with the material and social production of everyday reality. The photographs are records of a performance staged as part of ‘No Big Deal, Mom’, which are given a new, conceptual meaning, as they form a barrier to ‘Ode to Mother’, a video performance in which the artist plays with curses referencing mother, as representative of the kind of vulgar culture encountered in our society. As the artist utters these common curses, they are followed by laughter, which instantly and automatically rids them of their original meaning, which is distorted. The artist thus attacks not only the individual, but also what is essential about society, which ruthlessly imposes its totalitarianism.

Curator: Mladen Banjac