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08/23/2007: "David Maljkovic" by Alice Cavender
David Maljkovic is one of Croatia’s talented emerging young artists. At the CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux, he is showing three of his most recent videos entitled « Scenes for a new heritage ».
Maljkovic was born during the confusing period of national identities and changing boundaries in Eastern Europe and was therefore left with an uneasy feeling of not belonging to any country in particular. Who is he really? Is he Croatian? Is he European? Is he Serbian (the nationality into which he was born)? This uncertainty comes through in his artwork and becomes a disturbing element in his videos.
The first video « These days » portrays young men and women standing noncommittally next to cars, in a storey car park. They are not talking or looking at each other, they are all assembled in the same area but are not communicating. The video is a symbol of the society, static and uncommunicative.
The second video is in one of the cars; two people sit next to each other but are facing forward. They are together but still strangely distant, as they almost don’t seem to be aware of one another. Taking turns, they recite sentences in English but as if they have read them from a phrasebook. They are real phrases, but not the kind with which you communicate. They seem ridiculous and misplaced. But they have however managed to establish a dialogue, and it means progress.
The third video shows a group of youths next to a commemorative monument dedicated to the victims of the war. They are chatting amongst themselves, and have managed to establish a reasonable dialogue. They are now trying to find a way in which to approach the monument, a monument unknown to them in their present and confusing in their historical past. After ball games and numerous interactions between the different people present, the last scene shows a small amount of the youths on top of the monument, examining the world curiously. The battle has been won, communication has been established. The young generation have faced their present, accepted their past and thought about their future.
David Maljkovic’s videos are a poetic and unusual way of showing contemporary society and its contradictions. A must see.
