Untitled (School Chairs)
photo installation
40 cm x 60 cm (12 psc)
2014

The Untitled (School Chairs) series of photographs show a range of chair backs, uniform and different at the same time, used and partially written off from the faculty (school) inventory. The work records the impact of use, human interventions and time on inventory property used for educational purposes.

Milorad Mladenović won the 55th October Salon Award (2014) for the Untitled (School Chairs) Series.

The artist photographed ephemeral objects from the domain of production and consumption of knowledge on which various effects of use are visible, from touching of human bodies (backs) to damage by using or moving. Repairmen’s interventions that extended the duration of the objects can also be noticed. The photographs of the objects from the local environment in which the author plays a role in the production and consumption of knowledge are life-size.

In the Untitled (School Chairs) Series, the chosen elements are specific and there is no attempt to indicate a more definite meaning from them as a whole, but to form a visible wide-frame scheme that can be understood from the context. Also, the work is designed as a possible reflection of any private or public environment. The basic classification may relate to private, work and public space of the artist’s observation.

© Cultural Centre of Belgrade, the October Salon Collection and the artist
Purchase Contract: III-5-168/1.6.2016.
Inventory No. 1424
Photo: Courtesy the artist

Selected Bibliography:
55th October Salon, Disappearing Things. Cultural Centre of Belgrade, 2014
Milorad Mladenović: Neposredni konteksti, Nov. 17 – Dec. 11, 2016, catalogue of the solo exhibition, Art Gallery, Cultural Centre of Belgrade, 2016

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Milorad Mladenović (1966, Belgrade, Serbia) graduated and obtained a master’s degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade and graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, where he has worked as an associate professor since 1995. His fields of activity are visual arts and architecture. He has participated in a great number of exhibitions in these fields in the country and abroad and been awarded several times for his work. He won three awards at the October Salons in Belgrade (2000, 2003 and 2014), the Main Award of the Nadežda Petrović Memorial in Čačak (2000) and other important awards for visual arts and architecture. His works were exhibited at Secession in Vienna (2004), Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade (2005 and 2012), 10th Venice Architecture Biennale (2006), etc. He occasionally publishes articles on visual arts and architecture.