During the Milosevic years, that Musuem didn’t match the current political situation. As behind the 25th of May, there is also the House of Flowers, Titos Graveyard.

Telling a positive story and exhibiting the dead body of Yugoslavian Communist Identity, including Tito, was not an aim, for the Milosevic regime. They simply forbid the museum to exhibit their own collection. So all that years, this museum was empty or temporary used for shooting music videos or organizing fashion shows. The year 2003 was already after the Fall of Milosevics Empire, and suddenly on the doors of the Museum also Tourists appeared. They left quite disappointed, cause the museum of Yugoslavian History was empty. Inside the Museum there was a huge collection of presents Tito received, from ordinary people to political World leaders.

After few days of negotiation and long discussions with the workers and employees of the Museum, i managed to have access to their stocks. So i could research the hidden, non-public part of the Museum. And a few hours more, and with the support of almost every worker and employee in the Museum, i was allowed to take few items from the collection, and to exhibit it for the first time again, where it should be exhibited! A text about that show was written by Antje Mayer, was published by Kunstzeitung, and who speaks german, can read it here: redaktionsbuero

A very interesting detail, later as Slobodan Milosevic died, he was presented in the Museum of 25th May. So somehow he was as a dead, part of the exhibition, in the Frame: Museum of Yugoslavian History.

Now my work:

details

Internationales Künstler Gremium

At our annual meeting in Belgrade 2003 the intentions was to rediscover Serbia swallowed up for years by criminal politics and the art which is produced there nowadays.In the Museum 25th of May – Museum of Yugoslav History, a part of the Tito Memorial Center we organized a show with IKG-members and invited serbian guests, complemented by discussion rounds investigating the status of the art in a changing political, geographical and social situation.

In the comparison of the art works from eastern and western Europe different strategies, means, work concepts became vivid. One could realize that the Serbian artists on one side are in quest of the – interrupted – stream of tradition, linking them to the international art world. But on the other hand they insist on their peculiarity, trying not to loose a wider social and political dimension of the art.

Participants
IKG-Members: Renate Anger, Hartmut Böhm, Monika Brandmeier, Heinrich Brummack, Georg Dietzler, Jarg Geismar, Wolfgang Hahn, Silke Leverkühne, Eva Löfdahl, Rune Mields, Markus Mussinghoff, Phill Niblock, Eva-Maria Schön, Artur Tajber, Biljana Tomic, Anna Tretter, Michael Willhardt.
Guests: Terry Buchholz, Mrdan Bajic, Branko Dimitrijevic, Nenad Glisic, Dejan Grba, Tatjana Ilic, Dragan Jovanovic, Katharina Karrenberg, Mari Laanemets, Alexander Nikolic, Dragan Papic, Marica Presic, Jelena Radic, Josef Ramaseder, Misa Savic, Radomir Stancic, Talent, Zoran Todorovic, Selman Trtovac, Cedomir Vasic, Georg Wissel

I was invited to participate as serbian or guest artist. In another post I’ll show the work i did for Rediscover Belgrade. I took the title very literally.