Who's in town?
Branislav Dimitrijević

English

Branislav Dimitrijević, Senior Lecturer at the School for Art and Design (VSLPUb) and Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Belgrade, will discuss the Atomic War Command (ARK) in Konjic, Bosnia - one of the largest underground facilities ever built in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and among the most massive construction projects in its history. Dedicated to sheltering the Yugoslav Army headquarters, along with 350 chosen ones in the event of nuclear war, the space was built over a period of almost three decades (from the 1950s - 1970s) and cost billions of dollars.

Today, the ARK is an exhibition space for the 1st Time Machine Biennale of Contemporary Art: “No Network,” curated by Branislav Dimitrijević and Petar Ćuković. The title came from a simple observation: the bunker is a secluded space that prevents the use of contemporary means of individual communication. The issues raised by this location and this project are reflected in the dominant “pre-apocalyptic” mood: climate change, environmental pollution, rapid depletion of natural energy resources, dispersion of the nuclear arsenal, drastic increase in population with resultant poverty, an expanding “third world” in a global “post-industrial” economic and political system, aggressive privatization of public assets including “universal knowledge” itself, repressive political dictatorships and growing religious fanaticisms announcing the upcoming “end of the world.”

Branislav Dimitrijević is a lecturer of history and art theory, writer, curator and co-founder of the independent educational project “School for History and Theory of Images” in Belgrade (1999-2003). He has published essays on contemporary art, art theory, film and visual culture, and edited publications and exhibition catalogues including On Normality: Art in Serbia 1989-2001 (MOCA, Belgrade, 2005). Dimitrijević’s curatorial projects include: Murder1 (CKZD, Belgrade 1997), Konverzacija (MOCA, Belgrade 2001), Situated Self: Confused Compassionate, Conflictual (Helsinki City Museum; MOCA, Belgrade, 2005), Breaking Step – Displacement, Compassion and Humour in Recent Art from Britain (MOCA, Belgrade, 2007), FAQ Serbia (ACF, New York, 2010), and No Network (1st Time Machine Biennial, Atomic Bunker, Konjic, 2011). Dimitrijević curated the Yugoslav/Serbian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and 2009. He is currently completing his PhD thesis at the University of Arts in Belgrade.