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Bosko Boskovic - Taxi to Berlin - project

The majority of Mladen Miljanovic’s work begins through an action, which is rooted in his own immediate environment.  The next step is to alter the circumstance, thus creating new possibilities and aspects, which he then presents to the wider world of art.

Since the beginning of his artistic career, there has always been a performative side to his oeuvre, yet he seems to be moving slowly but surely towards “lived through” experiences with his audience. The project Taxi to Berlin is a natural extension of a week long performance Taxi to Museum that took place during his solo exhibition at the MUMOK Museum in Vienna in the summer of 2010. The centerpiece and starting point of the exhibition was the vehicle Zastava 101, a metaphor for a society that stagnates.  The car was manufactured in Ex-Yugoslavia from 1972 till 2008 - the original model not changing during that whole period of time.  For a week, Miljanovic acted as a taxi driver in the Zastava 101 taking calls from customers who wish to be transported to the MUMOK Museum in Vienna.

This time around Miljanovic takes a step further with the Zastava 101 and creates the performance Art as Vehicle, serving art on the highways from his native Banja Luka in Bosnia & Hercegovina to Berlin. Like many past projects, he begins with presenting the concept through an open source platform, mostly electronic and printed media. A month and a half before the exhibition the artist announces an open call, for all citizens of Bosnia and Hercegovina who need to travel to Berlin on April 25, 2011 to contact him via phone or e-mail and a selected two receive a free ride in the Zastava 101 Car from Banka Luka to Berlin - approximately 24 hours in travel time. The artist received approximately 90 applicants via e-mail, from all corners of Bosnia & Hercegovina, mainly from people in their 20’s and 30’s. The response makes a case that the younger generation of Bosnians are ready and willing to embrace collaborative propositions for artistic and personal reasons.

Miljanovic is a firm believer in the necessity and importance of the social aspects of art and the responsibility of the artist to lead communities into undiscovered spheres. It is the process with the audience that interests him most, the construction of a platform for honest and open dialogue where new realities are born. Through the parameters of his own creative ideology, art becomes a tool for shifting consciousness.

Once in Berlin, the artist presents the outcome of the performance in the gallery space under the title Consequences of Art.  Different parts and elements of the vehicle are on display as well as an edited video recording of the entire journey from Banja Luka to Berlin. The gallery becomes a parking lot for the Zastava 101. There are eight bottles on a shelf, filled with the oil that has been pumped out of the car and eight bottles of cooling fluid extracted from the engine. Miljanovic breaks down the elements that create the energy for the vehicle in question and consequently makes this trip/performance/exhibition possible. At the opening of the exhibition, Miljanovic makes a symbolic gesture/happening  where he lets loose the air from all four tires, releasing the air from Banja Luka into Berlin. An analogy can be drawn to Marcel Duchamp’s Paris Air, 1919, when the artist emptied an ampoule of serum and filled it with Paris air, before sending it to his friend Walter Arensberg to the United States.

Inherent in Miljanovic work is the notion of acting as a disciplined and diligent soldier/worker, who serves in the name of art. With his latest performances the artist seems to be reconsidering his own position as someone who in service to the public and society at large through his artistic practice/service. The direct interaction and impact that Miljanovic develops with his audience allows for a literal experience within the work of art that will be on display in the gallery space. The artist carves out a time to spend with his constituencies while simultaneously producing a work of art, thus creating a “live social sculpture.”  En route from Banja Luka to Berlin many things may happen between the passengers and the artist. It is exactly this moment of fissure that Miljanovic is searching for, the space where barriers are broken down and life envelopes art and vice versa.  Oscar Wilde writes: “The third doctrine is that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life. This results not merely from Life's imitative instinct, but from the fact that the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realize that energy. It is a theory that has never been put forward before, but it is extremely fruitful, and throws an entirely new light upon the history of Art.” [1]

New York 2010

  Mladen Miljanovic e- iserveart@gmail.com