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Mladen Miljanović: Realtime Monument
13.01.2023 19:00

Mladen Miljanović: Realtime Monument
13 January–11 February 2023
MMC KIBLA / KiBela

You are kindly invited to the opening of the solo exhibition by Mladen Miljanović, which will take place on Friday, 13 January 2023, at 7 p.m. at the KiBela art space.

INVITATION (PDF)
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION (PDF)

In this exhibition, Mladen Miljanović addresses the media representation of death in a time of the global pandemic, and at the same time the posthumous representation of new media devices in the form of objects carved in stone. How is death articulated through the channels of contemporary communication and how is it disseminated through the media? The artist interrogates the position of death, its commodification in capitalism, the ways in which death is represented, and the images of life that become »extensions of death«, with the assumption that when life ceases, the image or representation lives on.

Mladen Miljanović was born in Zenica (Yugoslavia) in 1981. He completed secondary school in Doboj. After secondary school, he attended the Reserve Officer Military School where he earned the rank of sergeant. As a sergeant, he trained 30 privates. After completing the military term, he worked in a stonemason workshop producing tombstones. After a few years of working with tombstones, he enrolled at the Academy of Arts in Banja Luka. Currently, he is living in Banja Luka where he teaches New media art at the Academy of Arts, University of Banja Luka. He based his art practice upon a conceptual approach which is questioning his own surrounding and living conditions: on one hand, his work is influenced by the experience of growing up during the war and its aftermath in the destroyed, impoverished, ethnically, and territorially divided, and externally isolated country. On the other hand, it is his formal education (Reserve Officer Military School, and later work at a tombstones workshop). The consequences of the war and knowledge gained in military school make the basic field of reference of his work as an artist. From his primary education of being a painter he combines new media and conceptual strategies into a pluralistic, engaged, and subversive contemporary art approach. In this approach art is not a goal, but a tool. He is one of defining figures of the regional art scene. At the early stage of his practice Mladen was included in the international selection of artists under 33 Younger Than Jesus - Artist Directory by New Museum curators Laura Hoptman and Massimiliano Gioni. He participated at the 55th Venice Biennale, 15th Busan Video Biennale and most recently 13th Cairo Biennale among other group shows. His solo shows and projects were among others shown at MUMOK in Vienna, Gallery MC in New York, ACB Gallery in Budapest, A+A Gallery in Venice, Neue Galerie Graz and Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade. He is the recipient of regional and international awards for artistic practice such as: 30th Nadežda Petrović Memorial Award 2020, Čačak (RS); White Aphroide Award 2019, ACE KIBLA, Maribor (SI); Henkel Art Award 2009, Vienna (AT); Zvono Award 2007, SCCA Sarajevo (BiH); Award of the Museum of Contemporary Art Republic of Srpska, 2006, Banja Luka (BiH).

www.mladenmiljanovic.com

< Mladen Miljanović, Blaupunkt, 2020–2021, engraved drawing on black stone. Photo: Bojana Janjić.

MMC KIBLA / KiBela, Ulica kneza Koclja 9, Maribor
Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

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