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Today's contemporary art is tightly associated with analytical approach and theoretical interpretation.  Mladen Miljanovic's text „In the Service of Art“deals with recognition and actualization of a new paradigm of artistic work which, in 21st Century, does not separate art, theory and media from everyday existential and social life.  This text of a young artist, who is one of the most prominent representatives of the post-war generations of artists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, is based on his own artistic work and engagement.  His strategies and methods of work express auto-reflexive approach in dealing with the negative energy of the recent past. In a statement given at the beginning of his artistic work Miljanovic refers to the memory of the space which serves as the main conceptual basis of his artistic work: I use art as the means of sublimation of the negative forms of the past by using performance, installation, image and photograph as media through which the forms of the social trauma are being redefined.

This basic referential point of his artistic work expresses not only an existential experience of growing up during the war, but also the choice and decision to continue his education in an „isolated, destroyed, impoverished, ethnically and territorially divided“country. Miljanovic paradoxically mixes his experiences as a Military school trainee and Art Academy student, which, at one point and by pure chance, cross at the same place – owing to the fact that the University was moved to the former military barracks after the war. Deconstruction of the memory of the space, in situ work, exploitation of context and use of “dead symbols” of transition and military “image vocabulary” in a new artistic context, etc. create a broad referential frame recognized in the very title of the text. There are various thematic issues which are being explored. In the Summary, the conditions of conceptual and production approaches are explained, followed by an elaborate presentation, description and theoretic interpretation of each artist’s project, divided into the following chapters: part I: In the Service of Art, Body-Space-Medium, Fragmentation: I serve art; part II: I serve Art – Artwartising, part III:, part IV: Instead of a conclusion, Idealism fragmentation and part V which contains all the technical references. 

Each of the four conceptual parts (I serve Art, Artwartising, Occupo and Occupational therapy) has its own field of research with focus on analysis and positioning of the context. Deconstruction of a dominant social function (military power and destruction) which arises from a specific place (memory of the space) acquires its symbolical power of artistic act through the analysis of its actual and symbolical power.  This implies a conceptual as well as theoretical work with the context, fictions of the past and ideologies of power; however, it can also become an artistic means of “sublimation of the negative past” under the condition that “differences between art as a profession and art as therapy” are properly understood. As a matter of fact, Mladen Miljanovic understands them very well indeed. On the one hand, the project of space identity deconstruction through artistic work is based on personal experience; the experience of discipline, service, oath, hierarchy, systematization, monitoring and training obedient bodies, which will later serve to analyze what appears to be a different system; the system of art. On the other hand, it is based on the fact that post-modernism over-rated the morally neutral position of art/artist, which Miljanovic regards with irony in the phrase I serve art. This also shows the power of art and its positive energy which not only reflects the world of art but also the world of existence. In a series of strategic analyses, their conceptualization and visualization, the contextual code in the approach is dominant; especially regarding the communicative relation of space – symbol which does not separate the context of art from the context of life.

I would like to conclude the following: Mladen Miljanovic’s complex work which is analyzed in the text tiled “I Serve Art” deserves our undivided attention for many reasons; most importantly for its mature conceptual and media approach, as well as for the systematization of auto-reflexivity in his artistic work. And finally, due to the importance that such contextual approach in theoretical interpretation of art has, especially regarding the position of artistic engagement today which can never return to the time of pre-theoretical innocence. Thus, the focused themes and forms of identity have been made visible, i.e. present on both local and wide art scene. They deal with exploring “identity crisis” in transition as well as with a neo-conceptual “identity search” related to different interpretations of the “East-European” transitional paradigm through relevant references of cultural mediation and “autonomy” of artistic subject. Miljanovic’s explorative approach confirms the fact that having a place and context means to have all the joys and identity traumas along with differences which are both collective and individual.

Zagreb 2010

  Mladen Miljanovic e- iserveart@gmail.com