| Description |
The collages, films, and architectural mises-en-scène of the Croatian artist David Maljkovic form part of the current critical engagement with modernism. Maljkovic turns his attention to sculptural and architectonic symbols that, against the backdrop of Yugoslav socialism, signified the dawn of a new era. He renegotiates these on a historic, cultural, and theoretical level by relating it to the present and the future. In his exhibition at the Secession he takes a different path: He reflects his own previous ideas by giving many of his existing works a radical restaging. Objects developed as presentation structures for other contexts and contents will be cleared out and emptied. Maljkovic arranges these objects in the main exhibition hall and accents them only with minimal marks and interventions like fog or sounds. In this way he deliberately at odds with the model of the classical retrospective as an exhibition that brings together and sequences a representative cross-section of the artist's work. It also goes far beyond a site-specific adaptation of prototypical works. Instead, by concentrating on various forms of display, Maljkovic focuses attention on his own artistic strategies and experiences, as well as addressing the act of exhibiting itself. Besides the site-specificity of the exhibition space, the themes he addresses fascinatingly and with surprising turns include the distinction between fine and applied art, narrative structures in space, and the historical references present in the displays. |