Manifesto
(a.k.a. - on postnuclear pointlesism / suicide for dummies / deus ex machina / on banana fishes / last night on earth / operation doorstep 2 / lorem ipsum)
Manifesto 1 SBA
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Manifesto 2 SBDO
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Manifesto 3 SBH
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Manifesto 4 SBWC
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Manifesto 5 SBG
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Manifesto 6 SBJFH
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Manifesto 7 SBD
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Manifesto 8 SBMVEG
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exhibition catalogue text by Milica Lapčević
I saw the grievous task which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.
(The Book of Ecclesiastes 1:13 -10)
I remember my father used to say that an important reason for living was preparing
to stay dead for a long time after that. (William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying)
Surely you already know that you can get to know your ancestors on ancestors.com, that you can find every person on the planet through search engines tailored to countries and nations. You probably know that you can check how you will look in old age, look at detailed photo reports of NASA rovers from Mars, listen to the sound of distant planets beyond the solar system, visit all major cities by digital taxis, not to mention Google view, satellite images and public cameras. You know that you can spend thousands of hours on Google meet, watch new movies, visit museums and consume all other content that might interest you on 1.7 billion websites in which 4.5 billion people participate every day, while downloading all information that is currently online would take took million years at a speed of 44 megabytes per second ...
But who are you really?
Photographer Luka Klikovac gives an unexpected answer to this question in his new exhibition titled Manifesto using a hybrid of an educational doll and self-shaped humanoid figure, painted with bright, warning colors that we find both in nature, as well as in signaling for nuclear danger. This elegant anthropomorphic figure illustrates classical ways of committing suicide in front of our very eyes taking place in meticulously built and consistently cinematographically lit spaces of apartments, garages and workshops. Most of the photos are shot during the socalled movie night, and the models of the rooms are surrounded by unspecified garden and park greenery, which reinforces the impression of dramatic isolation of each individual suicidal event.
In this way, the anthropomorphic doll, a post-media example of a possible representation of man, serves, like the photographs themselves, for a forensic reconstruction of the tragic act of supreme alienation, hopelessness, and even helplessness in relation to the modern "state of affairs" - a world of neoliberal reproduction of values that serves to increase the already growing class differences, and the creation of untouchable and invisible communities of the privileged; the networked consumer anonymous consumerism of circulation and retrieval of goods and information, which turns the user into a compromised subject, a passive recipient of an incalculable amount of services that would simultaneously profile him - both in his "life and personality" (Schopenhauer), in his choices, development and his very Being (Heidegger).
As in Luka Klikovac’s previous exhibitions, he is intuitively immersed in the most current
trends and in the pulsation of our civilization (Memento, Mirror, Baggage) he patiently and
precisely constructs scenes from the cycle Manifesto with prominent photographic virtuosity, scenes that are simultaneously a warnings sign and diagnosis - the hopeless surrender of the engineering symbol before us should be replaced by the rebellion of the human model according to which it was created.
Illuminated by the apocalyptic light of the future that is slowly illuminating our own destiny
from these photographs, we still have at least a little hope that this is just another stage
in the development of a new humanity - perhaps a suicidal rebellion of dolls could initiate
new insights that would incite us to set out in search of the sensual and the bodily at the
expense of the designed engineering stereotypes of our existence, to rise and quietly leave the system of virtual freedom, once again, as many times before in history, because "unbeing dead isn't being alive." (E.E.Cummings)
We would like to note at the end of this text about this very current exhibition in front of
you, that its content refers to those who own apartments, garages and workshops, cars and furniture, somewhere on the planet, and that the vast majority of human beings are racially, economically and existentially oppressed, on the move continuously transforming the image of the world around us. The mysterious greenery on the edges of each scene reminds us of that, on whose survival depends as much as what is in the center of the observer’s gaze.
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Exhibition setting
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Video invitation for Exhibition 1
Video invitation for Exhibition 2
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Behind the scenes fun… thanks for watching
