Mladen Bizumic
Hotel Jugoslavija: A Repository with a View
Hotel Jugoslavija: A Repository with a View is a second-part of Mladen Bizumić's project Hotel Jugoslavija that was inaugurated at the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade earlier this year. The “Hotel Jugoslavija” was the largest hotel in the Socialist Federative Republic Yugoslavia with over 350 rooms and suits, restaurants with over 800 places, and other “contents” on seven floors of the main architectural complex and its accompanying buildings. It was designed by the Zagreb architects Mladen Kauzlarić, Lavoslov Horvat and Kazimir Ostrogović, as one of the three main public buildings of the new capital, as early as 1947. The construction has begun in the early Sixties, according to the modified version by Lavoslav Horvat, and the hotel finally opened in 1969. The building’s architecture represents an extraordinary example of uncompromising application of a modernist architectural program. Today it also represents the internationally recognizable statement of ideological and aesthetic ambitions behind the construction of an entire project of the Socialist Yugoslavia. However, this colossal facility suffered the fate of the country after which it had been named: following the credited expansion in the Seventies, it becomes unprofitable in the Eighties, while during the Nineties it loses its hotel guests as well as two of its five stars, and, it becomes transformed, above all, into a venue for local ceremonies and festivities. During the NATO bombardment in 1999, it was hit and partially damaged and after the year 2000, closed and then privatized, while today it still awaits its reconstruction under the name “Kempinski-Yugoslavia”…
In his show Hotel Jugoslavija: A Repository with a View Bizumić shows photographs and video recordings, as a result of investigation and observation of the current state of the building, next to sculptural material “borrowed” from the hotel itself. The specific situation created at Georg Kargl BOX is first noticeable from the outside as an interaction between the transparency of the display window and its reflection. Entering the space you find an installation that is divided into two interlinked spatial situations - a “modified” hotel room and a “reversed” hotel reception. In the main space - which is noticeable from the outside - Bizumić is presenting double exposed analog black and white photographs, which correlate with the sculptural arrangements of dislocated hotel elements. Wooden cabinets, liberated from their original function as furniture in the hotel rooms where stacked atop one another, floor lamps lined in a row correspond to the proportions and relations of the human body. Behind the wall Bizumić created something like a hotel reception - the “informative” part of the exhibition - which acquires the aesthetics of a conceptualist layout made up of processed administrative documents: an inventory of the hotel furnishings, hotel regulations, different (and historically symptomatic) versions of “do not disturb” signs etc. The exhibited objects and documents represent both: parts of an archive in the process of coming into being and the subjectivity of the “comprehensibility” of these objects through their mutual collaging and re-aesthetisation. The video Bizumić realised in cooperation with the New Zealand artist Jim Speers was shot in the original location and shows a number of items used in the gallery presentation – it therefore links the investigative dimension of the work with its spatial configuration and creates a specific audio-visual space, that is a space in-between the potential from the past, the complexity of the present and the possibility of the future. Bizumić's basic methods in this project are “dislocation” and spatial “re-arrangement” or “reprocessing” of selected material remains found inside the hotel. Following the legendary Slovenian designer Niko Kralj the central issue is to “realize a modular measurement system of elements which make it possible to put together infinitely varied shapes”. The idea of “uniqueness through seriality” is poetically rearticulated and revived through its new reconfiguration, as well as through the dynamics of their relations with the viewers, both perceptive and physical ones. It is such a programmatic modularity that Bizumić sees the essence of the potential and a possible re-articulation of the modern project. Thus he forms an area of transformation wherein his personal fascination with the object of his research encounters social, political as well as art historical issues to which we still do not have answers.
Biography
Solo Exhibitions
2023
COPIA: Collection of Post-Industrial Arts, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
2019
The Ecology of Attention, Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
Interiors of Photography (with Sophie Thun), Camera Austria, Graz
2018
Kunstbüro (with Yuki Hugashino), Vienna
BOOK (Photo Boom Photo Box), Kunstraum, Retz
2016
Kodak Employed 140.000 People. Instagram 13., MOSTYN. Wales
2015
Kodak: Reorganization Plan, Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
Artissima (with David Maljkovic), Oval, Turin
2014
Bankruptcy and Reorganisation, ZAMEK Centre for Culture, Poznan
Kodak: la présence de l’image, galerie frank elbaz, Paris
2013
Kodachrome Presents, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland
Keep Me. Protect Me. Share Me, Galerie Karin Sachs, Munich
2012
Hotel Jugoslavija, Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade
180° (with Andreas Fogarasi), Neuer Kunstverein Wien, Vienna
Hotel Jugoslavija: A Repository with a View, Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
2011
Untitled (Window Painting #5) (with Benjamin Hirte), Ve.sch, Vienna
2010
From Cube To Ball (Chapter 1), Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland
From Cube To Ball (Chapter 2), Adam Art Gallery, Wellington
2009
Global Truths vs. Local Reflections, Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland
America (with Ovul Durmusoglu), Parallel Event/Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul
After the Party, Hirschfeld, Berlin
Everyone is Welcome!, Uszynska Schaufenster, Vienna
2008
1st Translator’s Note – Le desir de philosophie, Zoo Galerie, Nantes
Everyone is Welcome!. Te Tuhi - Centre for the Arts, Auckland
2007
How If - A Translation in III Acts, Künstlerhaus Bethanien & PROGRAM, Berlin
Colonial Atmospheres, Physics Room, Christchurch
An Expedition Yet To Happen, Two Rooms, Auckland
2006
Superstructure Doubled (with Øystein Aasan), Korridor, Berlin
Crystal Memorial, Charim Galerie, Vienna
2005
Planet Wittgenstein, Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland
2004
event.horizon.black.hole, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin
Aipotu: Love Will Tear Us Apart, Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland
Aipotu: Love Will Tear Us Apart (again), Hocken Collections, Dunedin
2003
Fiji Biennele Pavilions, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth
The Night Shift, Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland
event.horizon, Ramp Gallery, Hamilton
2002
Tauranga Guggenheim, ARTSPACE, Auckland
A Beautiful Afterlife, Window, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland
7000 Rimu Trees, Rear Window, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin
2001
Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland
Group Exhibitions
2024
By the Means at Hand: Vlatka Horvat, Croatian Pavilion, 60th Venice Biennale
Bringing Owls from Athens, Georg Kargl BOX x Callirrhoë, Athens, Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
2023
Synchron, Ela Nord Studio, Vienna
Unearthing the Collection: October Salon Collection, Cultural Center, Belgrade
Little Precious Things, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
2022
Metadata: Rethinking Photography from the 21st Century, The Ringling, Sarasota, FL
AFFAIR, Savremena Galerijy Contemporary Gallery Subotice, Szabadka
Mutual Aid, Neadertal, London
2021
Enjoy - the mumok Collection in Change, mumok, Vienna
GEORG KARGL EDITIONS, Georg Kargl Permanent, Vienna
2020
OUTGOING DISPATCH, Artspace Aotearoa, Auckland
Would You Be Available…, Georg Kargl Permanent, Vienna
Bakelite: The Georg Kargl Collection, MAK, Vienna
Mulberry Tubes, Galerie Göttlicher, Krems
2019
Uncanny Values, 3rd Vienna Biennale, MAK, Vienna
Dialogue, Gesellschaft für projektive Ästhetik, Georg Kargl, Vienna
2018
Futurs Antérieurs, Maison Guerlain, Parcours Privé de la Fiac, Paris
Between Us, Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade
Concentration - A Tribute, Gesellschaft für projektive Ästhetik, Georg Kargl, Vienna
Reduction, Gesellschaft für projektive Ästhetik, Georg Kargl, Vienna
2017
Traces of Time, Leopold Museum, Vienna
Ponovo Upotrebiti, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
Out of Site, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University, Wellington
Secret Art Sale, Te Tuhi – Centre for the Arts, Auckland
2016
A Matter of Memory, Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York
This Is Your Replacement, Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf
Ouverture pour inventaire, FRAC Pays de la Loire, Nantes
Undreamed of..., Dunedin Public Gallery & Hocken Collections, Dunedin
2015
Le bon ton, Cultural Centre Belgrad, Belgrade
Repeat / Personal, Porous Space, Vienna
New Acquisitions, Moderna Galerija, Subotica
Etiquette: New Acquisitions October Salon, Cultural Centre of Belgrade
Our Hearts of Darkness, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth
2014
Hier & Jetzt, Stift Klosterneuburg, Klosterneuburg
Cut it, Scratch it, Stitch it, Keep it, Fotogalleriet, Oslo
Artists Using Photography, GESSO, Vienna
Freedom Farmers, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland
2013
Chambres de luxe, Kunstmuseum, Thun
Memory of Space – Space of Memory, Moderna Galerija, Subotica
Was ist Kunst? Resuming Fragmented Histories, KM – Künstlerhaus, Graz
Ephemeral Self, Finite Projections, The Gallery of the National Technical Library, Prague
21st Century Collecting, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University, Wellington
2012
Good Life, 53rd October Salon, Belgrade
Long Day, Fei Contemporary Art Centre, Shanghai
2011
Erschaute Bauten, MAK, Vienna
Dancing in the Rhyme, Kumho Art Museum, Seoul
Pawn Shop, Kopfbau, Basel
This is Happening II, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Opening Borders/Opening Objects, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
Wallpaper, Motel Campo – espace d’art polyvalent, Geneva
Drift of Summer, RM, Auckland
Dienstag Abend Editions, Ve.Sch, Vienna
First Impressions, TSB Wallace Arts Centre, Auckland
All Black, Tauranga Art Gallery, Tauranga
2010
Phoenix vs. Babel, Fondation d'Entreprise Ricard, Paris
Thriller, Rigaerstr. 69, Berlin
The Forgotten Bar, Galerie Im Regierungsviertel, Berlin
2009
Video from Aotearoa, Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg
For Keeps, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland
2008
Common Affairs, steirischer herbst festival, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz
Space Chase, Magnus Müller Galerie, Berlin
Zapping Unit, Le Ferme du Buisson, Paris
If You Carry A Hammer A Lot of Things Look Like Nails, Skalitzerstr. 64, Berlin
Earth Matters, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland
Video from Aotearoa, Co-Lab, Copenhagen
In Shifting Light, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland
Drawings, Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland
2007
Istanbul Biennale, Istanbul
00s’, Lyon Biennale, Museum Of Contemporary Art, Lyon
Art of the Nation, Te Papa – Museum of New Zealand, Wellington
Through the Painting, 2nd Moscow Biennale, Federation Tower, Moscow
Invisible/Invincible, Curators Without Borders, Berlin
2006
Hidetide, Zacheta National Art Gallery, Warsaw
Hidetide, CAC, Vilnius
Busan Biennale, Metropolitan Art Museum, Busan
Don't Misbehave, SCAPE Biennale, Christchurch
Play, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth
Play, Adam Art Gallery, Wellington
2005
Re: Modern, Künstlerhaus Wien, Vienna
Truer Than the Truth, Charim Galerie, Vienna
Playground, Art Play Architecture & Design Centre, Moscow
Skin Oil, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland
Small World, Big Town, City Gallery, Wellington
Showcase, The Wallace Trust Gallery, Auckland
2004
We are the World, Chelsea Art Museum, New York
Everyday Minimal, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland
Break-Shift, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth
International Art Fair and Cake Stall, Blue Oyster Gallery, Dunedin
2003
Vecu, Conical Artspace, Melbourne
Break, Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth
2002
Sublime Indigo, Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton
Botanica, Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland
7000 Rimu Trees, Rear Window, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin
Video, Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland
I See, The Croft Institute, Melbourne
2001
Bright Paradise, 1st Auckland Triennial, Auckland
Public Collections / Museumssammlungen
MUMOK - Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Vienna
MAK – Museum für angewandte Kunst / Gegenwartskunst Vienna
Fotosammlung des Bundes – Museum der Moderne Salzburg
FRAC - Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain, Nantes
Te Papa - Museum of New Zealand, Wellington
Victoria University Art Collection, Wellington
Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland
Wallace Arts Trust, Auckland
Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth
Hocken Collections, University of Otago, Dunedin
Moderna Galerija, Subotica
October Salon Collection, Kulturni Centar, Belgrade
Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York
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