Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

In Vesna At the Monument (2016), a humble middle aged woman appears on the site of a dilapidated, in-the-middle-of-nowhere monument, erected likely in the time when she was youthful and at her most optimistic. The monument was commissioned in order to commemorate the heroic actions of common citizens in their struggle against fascism, and desire to promote and participate in a progressive, utopic state. She shuffles past the monument, and sits to smoke a cigarette. Off screen, a voice is heard, asking her questions such as what is the meaning of this place, this monument, this moment. She does not answer, as though she does not hear the question, even while acknowledging the camera, and the voice itself. It could, one supposes, be the voice of the cameraman or director, a voice in the subject’s own head, perhaps the voice of the monument itself, trying to ascertain the meaning of itself in this day and age. It gets no reply, and eventually (perhaps fed up with the question), she simply leaves, with the interlocutor left in his own uncertainty. The video seems to reject or deny a past, while expressing grave uncertainty to the future.

Milutin Gubash est né à Novi Sad (Serbie) et vit à Montréal (Canada) depuis 2005. Il a présenté des expositions au Québec, au Canada, aux États-Unis et en Europe y compris au Musée d’art contemporain (2007) et une rétrospective coproduites par six institutions au travers le Canada (Rodman Hall Art Centre 2011, Carleton University Art Gallery 2012, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery 2012, Southern Alberta Art Gallery 2012, Musée d’art de Joliette 2012 et Fonderie Darling 2013). Sa pratique englobe la photographie, la vidéo et la performance et inclut souvent la participation de sa famille et amis qui incarnent une version d’eux-mêmes dans des feuilletons maison, des réinterprétations historiques et de pièces de théâtre improvisées. Par des moyens simples et des gestes souvent absurdes, Gubash questionne nos suppositions au sujet des récits de nos propres identités, histoires et environnements.