One Day instead of One Night a Burst of Machine-Gun Fire Will Flash, if Light Cannot Come Otherwise (from the poem One Day by Oskar Davičo)
action/intervention in public space, performed in Belgrade
10’
edition: 1/5 + 1 a.c.
2009
Every day, for two months, in the autumn of 2009, I walked to the places where successful anti-fascist actions were carried out by citizens and members of the People’s Liberation Movement in Belgrade during the German occupation in the Second World War. Photo and video footage of these repeated walks are a document of building a non-material monument, dedicated to events that are not part of public memory. With this action, first of all, I want to open the question of anti-fascism today and its erasure from public history and public memory, as well as its relevance in relation to new circumstances and new forms of fascism. Today, it is easy to recognize fascism in its excess forms, but the question is what about fascism that is all around us, that cannot be easily recognized at first sight, because it is built into laws and administration, and thus into our everyday life.
Milica Tomić
Dedicated to the Anarcho-trade unionists of Belgrade, Sept. 3, 2009
Audio recording: interviews with members of the People’s Liberation Movement in Belgrade Šime Kronja, Jelena Kadenić, Radošin Rajević, Dimitrije Bajalica
Camera and Sound: Staša Tomić
Editor: Miloš Stojanović
Sound Designer: Vladimir Janković Slonče
© Cultural Centre of Belgrade, October Salon Collection and the artist
Gift Contract: III-5-295/29.9.2014.
Inventory No. 1369
Photo: still from the video work, courtesy the artist, Srđan Veljović
Purloined Letter (Edgar Alan Poe)
lambda print, photo: Armin Linke
180 cm x 120 cm
edition: 1/5
2014/2015
The photograph was taken when she was researching in the archive of the President’s Photo Service (1947–1980, Josip Broz Tito) and preparing a work for the exhibition Travelling Communiqué at the Museum of Yugoslav History in Belgrade. Entering the archive and accessing this valuable material raised the issue of the relationship between the time when the photograph was made and us, artists who now have the right to exhibit this material and, decomposing it into fragments, change the significance of the original intention of the authors. The work Purloined Letter examines the fragmentation of great political narratives, raises the question of delayed audience and introduces Jacques Lacan’s comment that a letter always arrives at its destination and reaches its addressee, regardless of the original intention of the sender.
Milica Tomić
© Cultural Centre of Belgrade, October Salon Collection and the artist
Purchase Contract: III-5-477/1/19.12.2019.
Inventory No. 1669
Photo: Courtesy the artist
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Milica Tomić (1960, Belgrade, Yugoslavia). She is a conceptual artist who explores different fields, genres and methods of contemporary art practice. Her work focuses on researching and asking questions about political and economic violence, trauma and social amnesia, which she places in the sphere of public debate, with special attention to the ‘short circuit’ of the relationship between intimacy and politics. In response to the social changes and new forms of ‘collectivity’, which are at the core of Milica Tomić’s work, she made a marked shift from individual to collective artistic practice. She is a co-founder and members of the Monument Group, a New Yugoslav art theory group (2002), and a co-founder of the Working Group – Four Faces of Omarska (2010). Tomić has participated in many international exhibitions, including the 24th Sao Paulo Biennale (1998); 49th Venice Biennale (2001); 50th Venice Biennale (2003); 8th International Istanbul Biennial (2003); Populism, National Museum of Art, Oslo/Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam / Frankfurter Kunstverein (2005); 15th Sydney Biennale (2006); Manufacturing Today / Trondheim Biennale (2010); 10th Sharjah Biennial (2011); Odessa Biennial (2013); Monuments Should Not be Trusted, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, England (2016); Red Africa at Calvert 22, London / Galeria Avenida da Índia, Lisbon, Portugal (2016/17); Body Luggage, Kunsthaus Graz (2017); Sequences. Art of Yugoslavia and Serbia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade (2017); Volksfronten/Exhibiting at the Trowel’s Edge/Steirischer Herbst, Graz, Austria (2018), etc.
She participated in the 45th, 49th, 52nd and 54th October Salons.
More information at https://milicatomic.wordpress.com