Material: Modular mild steel plates (7x4x0.5cm)
Year: 2014-2017
Emerged as a result of autonymic relations accidental-thought through, solid-diused, small-large, the exhibition “7×4” primarily questions the part that chance and coincidence have in the making of an artwork. The title itself comes from the size of the plates that the author has found at one of Belgrade’s scrapyards and with which he then continues to manipulate creating his pieces, giving them new life and purpose. By using these found objects, and by placing them into function of a basic unit of matter, Milovanovic tries to emphasize the influence of the daily “coincidences” in life as well as in creativity, increasing the value of an, at first glance, common and unusable, elevating it to the level of truly meaningful. This way, the coincidence has been given a role of an action bearer, a catalyst, while the metal plate becomes something like an atom. The repetitive element, unchangeable and recognizable absolute in each single work, the crucial piece of different forms and various appearances that takes part in building, a principle. An element reminiscent of the Jung definition of coincidences according to which they happen because of the synchronicity that he dened as the casual binding principle. Nened as the primary structure of these works, the metal rectangle is the link, the element that connects everything and from which everything is formed. In that sence, the isolated system “7×4” in which the author achieves the repetative harmony by multiplying and imbeding the plates, creates new unique structures, very much like nature that with her countless variations seems timeless, wild and capricious, but in her base always acts with absolute regularity and rhythm. Coming by the iron plates, free and inspired with the possibility of exploring the form and shape, but still somewhat conditioned by the already dened, geometrically designed material, the author with his work questiones the relativity of the nal outcome and his own relationship with what has been given a priori. Playing with opposites of the clearly dened starting points and endless possibilities of creation mirrored in the abstract forms of these works, the rectangle plates are endlessly modulated and combined into unique, extraordinary wholes. And a bit like the coincidence itself, as an event whose cause we do not know in that particular moment but it has an echo and can develop our further acting in multiple scenarios, Milovanovic’s work represents a manifestation of endless variations of the outcomes of ideas, decisions, choices, accidents… The mutual starting point is seen also in the pure formal sence, in the works that too have a form that in some moments disperses so much that some elements almost get liberated, opening the work to the outside, threatening to become independent and start existing all by themselves, like in the rm, solid forms that have elements that gravitate to their center, introvertedly accumulating energy.
That very energy intro or extro directed, makes these works give out the impression of having something alive in them, something that drifts, bends and searches for its path, no matter if it is separating or fragmenting, no matter if it is trying to break through as a modular protuberance within the work, and makes “7×4” a confirmation of an idea that a whole is always more than a mere collection of its parts.
Art historian and curator Teodora Jeremic
