www.mladenmiljanovic.com

“I Serve Art”

„I Serve Art“ is a multidisciplinary project consisting of several series of works done during my nine-month isolation (from 20th October 2006 until 14th July 2007) in former military barracks „Vrbas“ in Banja Luka, today the University campus. Former military facility represents the central place of the apparatus of a totalitarian regime, whose traumatic consequences are still present in the society. Deconstruction of identity of a place and one’s personal past is done by living and working for nine months in that space. My personal connection with the barracks is represented through my six months of training for a reserve officer and three months as an instructor to thirty soldiers. I use art as means of decontaminating space as well as its deconstruction. The project started on 20th October 2006 with a web page (www.iserveart.net), which was the medium for presenting the work „274 Views on the World“ which could be defined as a combination of „Big Brother,“ military service and a zoo. It is a work which communicates in one direction between the isolated artist and the society.
The title „Sit-no“ is from the military slang – sitno – small, a few (meaning just a few more days in the army). Counting down the days remaining to serve art represents questioning and criticizing ideological, cultural, military and political systems. The work reflects artist’s critical attitude from outside of society toward it, using mostly practices of linguistic conceptualism and post modernistic approach.
Mapping of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the work “Artattack” as possible stops for terrorist organizations moving toward West, attempts to represent a parallel in the field of culture. The work was done in the isolation and it consisted of plans how to make exhibitions in big international art centers. “Area 1 For Artattack” is a possible mode for a Bosnian artist to have an exhibition on the West. On the canvases are the maps of galleries, which I got writing letters and introducing myself as a Dutch organization for promoting culture. Then I made plans for my exhibitions in those galleries using military visual symbols. Then I sent letters to those galleries again, where I asked for my exhibitions there, threatening with artistic terrorism!
“Invert Shoot” is an inverse act by the author in the relation between existence and non-existence of the past of space. It is a deconstructive approach to an area, where the artist is supposed to leave a certain trace, which emanates from construction of an art work. A human figure, as the motive of the work, is shaped with bullets outside the outline of the figure. Shooting around the figure is contrary to the use of weapons, which is to shoot the target.

Mladen Miljanovic