Milica Živković
— born in 1993 in Belgrade, is a multidisciplinary artist who completed her undergraduate studies in Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje (2017) and earned her Master’s from the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague (2020). Her artistic practice is deeply shaped by experiences of growing up in the Balkans during the post-war years, familial migrations across former Yugoslav states, and explorations of memory politics and the specificities of women’s struggles in the region. Živković has held solo exhibitions in Budapest, Prague, Belgrade, Bratislava, and Ljubljana and has participated in group shows across Europe. She was featured at the Bienvenue Art Fair in Paris (2021), and her work has been published in international art magazines such as ArtTribune, Kuba Paris, Easttopics, Nonfiction, and AQNB. She currently divides her time between Serbia, Montenegro and the Czech Republic. In 2023, Živković received the Milčik Award for Young Contemporary Artists.
I am a person of mixed roots and mixed emotions, whose artistic practice has been widely influenced with the context of post-war years in the Balkans, more precisely in Serbia and in Montenegro, where I grew up and where I was formed as a girl, as a young woman and as a young artist. My artistic body of work often deals with space, which serves the purpose of a certain scenery in which I combine mediums in which I predominantly work— painting, video, and objects. I am interested in trauma, spectacle, in everyday numbness that is a consequence of the collective intense past; I am interested in our shine and our common mud; our songs and our sorrow.
Through painting and sculpture I process these phenomena using the abstract language of forms and symbols, creating atmospheric compositions, while in my video works I supplement the atmosphere with the narrative, alive word and sound. I am also working with my female identity, trying to crack it in the context of the poisonous and confusing environment in which I grew up.
Above all, through my practice, I deal with love and its absence, trying to evoke its fluid form and its presence within the environment, the social context, and within myself. Within my work and myself I am learning how to dance with the traumatic experiences, those that happened to me and those that we inherited from our ancestors.
We might be forced to migrate, we might be forced to fear, to listen, to obey. Our first years of life might have looked like a festival of starvation, but we also might be more alive than we ever were. There is something ultimately beautiful in survival that I find inspiring and I think that it’s the ability to evolve and change shapes continuously. I see Balkan female identity as a perfect example of how survival can evolve into something extraordinarily powerful and I identify with it to its very core.
1Image: Milica Živković, A Life A Flash, series, 2020, Oil on textile, 120x155cm. Courtesy of the artist
2Image: Milica Živković, A Life A Flash, series, 2020, Oil on textile, 120x155cm. Courtesy of the artist
3Image: Milica Živković, A Life A Flash, series, 2021, Oil on textile, 120x155cm. Courtesy of the artist
4Image: Milica Živković, A Life A Flash, series, 2023, Oil on textile, 100x70cm. Courtesy of the artist
5Image: Milica Živković, How Am I to Protect My Wax-Built Castles of Love, Installation view, 2019, Easttopics Budapest. Courtesy of the artist
6Image: Milica Živković, How Am I to Protect My Wax-Built Castles of Love, Installation view, 2019, Easttopics Budapest. Courtesy of the artist and Easttopics Budapest
7Image: Milica Živković, How Am I to Protect My Wax-Built Castles of Love, detail, 2019, Easttopics Budapest. Courtesy of the artist and Easttopics Budapest
8Image: Milica Živković, Radiance Blast, Installation view, 2020, VUNU Slovakia. Courtesy of the artist and VUNU Slovakia
9Image: Milica Živković, Diva, video performans, 2020. Courtesy of the artist
10Image: Milica Živković, Through Trepidations of Her Soul Her Passion and Torments, Installation View, 2020. Courtesy of the artist
Milica Živković (Beograd, 1993) je multidisciplinarna umjetnica koja je osnovne studije slikarstva završila na Fakultetu likovnih umjetnosti na Cetinju 2017. godine, a magistrirala na Akademiji za umjetnost, dizajn i arhitekturu u Pragu 2020. Njenu umjetničku praksu u velikoj meri oblikuju iskustva odrastanja na Balkanu, posebno tokom poslijeratnih godina, porodične migracije između država bivše Jugoslavije, kao i ideje politike sjećanja i specifičnosti ženske borbe na pomenutom prostoru, sa posebnim naglaskom na ranjivost u kontekstu složenih i često kontradiktornih narativa. Milica je svoje radove izlagala samostalno u Budimpešti, Pragu, Beogradu, Bratislavi i Ljubljani, takođe i kolektivno širom Evrope. Učestvovala je na Bienvenue Art Fair-u u Parizu 2021. godine, a njeni radovi objavljivani su u više međunarodnih umjetničkih magazina od kojih su neki: ArtTribune, Kuba Paris, Easttopics, Nonfiction, AQNB i drugi. Trenutno živi i stvara između Srbije i Crne Gore kao i Češke Republike. Milica je dobitnica ‘Milčik’ nagrade za mlade savremene umjetnike/ce za 2023. godinu.
Ja sam osoba pomiješanih korijena i pomiješanih emocija, čija je umjetnička praksa u velikoj mjeri oblikovana kontekstom post-ratnih godina na Balkanu, tačnije u Srbiji i Crnoj Gori, gdje sam odrasla i gdje sam se formirala kao djevojka, kao mlada žena i mlada umjetnica.
Moje umjetničko stvaralaštvo često se bavi prostorom, koji posmatram kao scenografiju u kojoj kombinujem medije sa kojima pretežno radim – slikarstvo, video i objekte. Stvarajući istražujem i zanimam se za traumu, spektakl kao pojave kao i svakodnevnu otupjelost koja je posljedica intenzivne kolektivne prošlosti; zanimaju me naš sjaj i naše zajedničko blato; naše pjesme i naša tuga.
Kroz slikarstvo i skulpturu obrađujem ove fenomene koristeći apstraktni jezik formi i simbola, stvarajući atmosferske kompozicije, dok u video radovima dopunjujem atmosferu narativom, živom riječju i zvukom. Takođe, bavim se i svojim ženskom identitetom, pokušavajući da ga razotkrijem u kontekstu otrovne i zbunjujuće sredine u kojoj sam odrasla.
Iznad svega, kroz svoju praksu, bavim se ljubavlju i njenim odsustvom, pokušavajući da prizovem njen fluidni oblik i prisustvo u okruženju, u društvenom kontekstu, i u sebi samoj.
Unutar svog rada i unutar sebe istražujem kako je moguće plesati sa traumatičnim iskustvima, onima koja su se meni desila, kao i onima koja smo naslijedili od naših predaka.
Možda smo prisiljeni da migriramo, možda smo prisiljeni da se bojimo i da se pokoravamo. Naše prve godine života možda jesu izgledale kao festival gladi, ali možda smo tada bili življi nego ikada. Postoji nešto krajnje lijepo u preživljavanju, što smatram inspirativnim, i mislim da je to sposobnost neprestane evolucije i promjene oblika. Balkanski ženski identitet vidim kao savršen primjer kako preživljavanje može evoluirati u nešto izuzetno moćno i sa tim se identifikujem do same srži.
1Foto: Milica Živković, Iz ciklusa: "A Life A Flash", series, ulje na tekstilu, 120x155cm. Ustupljeno ljubaznošću umjetnice.
2Foto: Milica Živković, Iz ciklusa: "A Life A Flash", 2020, ulje na tekstilu, 120x155cm. Ustupljeno ljubaznošću umjetnice.
3Foto: Milica Živković, Iz ciklusa: "A Life A Flash", 2021, ulje na tekstilu, 120x155cm. Ustupljeno ljubaznošću umjetnice.
4Foto: Milica Živković, A Life A Flash, series, 2023, Oil on textile, 100x70cm. Ustupljeno ljubaznošću umjetnice.
5Foto: Milica Živković, How Am I to Protect My Wax-Built Castles of Love, Installation view, 2019, Easttopics Budapest. Ustupljeno ljubaznošću umjetnice.
6Foto: Milica Živković, How Am I to Protect My Wax-Built Castles of Love, Installation view, 2019, Easttopics Budapest. Ustupljeno ljubaznošću umjetnice i Easttopics Budapest-a.
7Foto: Milica Živković, How Am I to Protect My Wax-Built Castles of Love, detail, 2019, Easttopics Budapest. Ustupljeno ljubaznošću umjetnice i Easttopics Budapest-a.
8Foto: Milica Živković, Radiance Blast, Installation view, 2020, VUNU Slovačka. Ustupljeno ljubaznošću umjetnice i VUNU-a.
9Foto: Milica Živković, Diva, video performans, 2020. Ustupljeno ljubaznošću umjetnice.
10Foto: Milica Živković, Through Trepidations of Her Soul Her Passion and Torments, Installation View, 2020. Ustupljeno ljubaznošću umjetnice.
