Museum of Revolution
wood, acrylic on glass
160 cm x 70 cm x 40 cm
2009–2014
Lulić’s oeuvre is based on exploring of strategies for deconstructing the concepts of the legacy of modernism in Eastern and Western Europe, monuments, architecture, issues of collective memory, and historical, economic and social aspects of art. Many of his works are related to Yugoslav modernism, an authentic post-war phenomenon, an amalgam of the Western Bloc modernism and Eastern European communism. He looks into the selected topics and objects from a certain distance and with a touch of irony, without reviving the current political demands originally loaded into them. Using various media (sculpture, video, performance, photography), Lulić critically re-examines the relations of form and ideology, deconstructs, re-contextualizes and re-conceptualizes, giving new meanings to objects and spaces.
Lulić’s Museum of Revolution was originally designed as a work of monumental dimensions intended for a public space. In 2010 the inscription in red metal letters, inspired by the aestheticism of American billboards, was temporarily installed on the roof of the concrete extension of the Belvedere Museum in Vienna. The starting point for the work was the initiative for establishing and building the Museum of Revolution in Belgrade in the early 1960s, whose realization remained at the construction of its foundations, near the Museum of Contemporary Art. With this work, Lulić questions the meanings of the concepts “museum” and “revolution” – what the nature of a museum of revolution as an institution should be if we presume that the idea of the museum classification and presentation of a revolution is paradoxical, taking into account the fact that it is through revolution that institutional and social frameworks are re-examined; what a museum is today, what it should be like and what its role in society is. For the artist, this unrealized museum is a good example of how manifestos of a revolution can turn into symbols of decline. The work in the October Salon Collection is identical in form, while it differs in material and is intended for exhibiting in an inside (institutional) space, thus itself becoming a museum / gallery exhibit, highlighting the previously open questions without pretensions to provide definitive answers and leaving room for different interpretations. The work was exhibited at the 55th October Salon.
© Cultural Centre of Belgrade, the October Salon Collection and the artist
Gift Contract: III-5-294/1/29.9.2014.
Inventory No. 043
Photo: Milan Kralj
Selected Bibliography:
Marko Lulić – FUTUROLOGY. Exhibition Jun. 30 – Sept.10, 2017, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Vfmk Verlag für moderne Kunst GmbH, Vienna, 2017
Marko Lulić – o. T. (Lichtung) / Untitled (Clearing). 2010 was realized for sculpture project kunstwegen raumsichten. Publication: edition kunstwegen Städtische Galerie Nordhorn, Vienna, 2012
Marko Lulić DEATH OF THE MONUMENT. Dieser Katalog erscheint anlässlich der Ausstellung Marko Lulić New Works, Kunststiftung Erich Hauser, Oct. 10 – Nov. 1, 2009, Rottweil SCHLEBRÜGGE.EDITOR, Vienna, 2009
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Marko Lulić (1972, Vienna, Austria) studied at the University of Applied Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he also taught from 2008 to 2014. He has won a number of awards and participated in residency programmes in Europe and America. He has exhibited at numerous group and solo exhibitions at key international art institutions, museums and galleries (Austria, Norway, USA, Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Germany, South Korea, Sao Paolo, Greece, France, the Netherlands, Italy, England…). He currently teaches at the Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Planning of the Vienna Technical University.