Artist:
David Maljkovic (born 1973 in Rijeka, Croatia; lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia).

Materials:
Video (color, sound); 11:30 min.

Description:
Video triptych based on a socialist monument at Petrova Gora Memorial Park in the Petrova Gora mountain range outside Vojnic in Croatia. The monument is in memory of soldiers who fell in World War II. Maljkovic turns to postwar modernism as a folk tale for future inhabitants. He has said that he is less interested in the phenomenon of modernism in Yugoslavia than in an attempt to create new platforms on the ruins of existing grounds.

“Set 50 or so years from now, the series starts with cars comically wrapped in shiny metal foil to make them appear futuristic, driving along rural roads and arriving at a derelict monument to dead soldiers of World War II built in 1981 by the government of the former Yugoslavia. A structure of about five stories with curvy walls, it looks like a small office building designed by Frank Gehry. It’s the focus of a park and plaza now invaded by weeds and shrubbery. Seen from a distance, visitors in small groups mill about without clear purpose. There’s a feeling of mournful nostalgia in sharp contrast to the spirit of forward-looking faith in one of history’s most comprehensive collective endeavors—i.e., Communism—that the monument once embodied.”
—Ken Johnson, review of “Scenes for a New Heritage,” Museum of Modern Art, New York, The New York Times, March 26, 2015.