Many people are
confused by your professional work, as you are active in many fields. They
don’t use the proper terminology for your artwork. Can you, finally, describe yourself
in a precise way?
I regard myself as a
new media avant-garde composer/de-composer,
radical, uncompromising, hermetic, polymedia artist.
radical, uncompromising, hermetic, polymedia artist.
You are a progressive
artist and composer, but neglected and misunderstood even though paradoxically, your artwork has its roots mainly in
the art of Judeo-Christian civilisation. Who were the people that influenced
you?
My influences are
mostly among people that have been gone a long time gone, leaving us with such
great, divine inventions: Orlando di Lasso, Monteverdi, Bach, Mahler, The
Russian Five, Mokranjac, Schoenberg, Slavenski, Webern, Honneger, Cage,
Stockhausen, Scelsi, Tesla, Einstein, Milanković, Caravaggio, Gogh, Duchamp,
Stein, Maciunas, Beuys, Dali, Basquiat, Charlie Parker, Elvin Jones, Thelonious
Monk, Kubrick, Hesse, Andrić, Kiš, etc. There are also a few composers, artists,
still alive, that I worship: Vladan Radovanović, Srđan Hofman, Miroslav Mandić,
Michelangelo Lupone, John Zorn and Steve Reich. One of my life concepts is to
provoke so-called ’liberal’ artists and people. It’s amazing what can actually
come out of their mouth – it can be worse than any Hitler speech ever.
You lived in London,
England. It’s obvious that the British way of life had a big impact on your
personal development. What’s your opinion about the British system in general?
OK, I love the UK,
and respect their rich tradition: Monarchy, British bravery, modesty, a gentle
approach towards asylum seekers, social justice, people’s social security system,
etc. But I can’t forget disasters perpetrated by their government – from Blair
up to Cameron, and still happening – by oversimplifying the situation in ex-Yugoslavia and
elsewhere. Mr. John Major was liberal compared to them.
I’ve noticed changes
in your recent compositions. You started from a kind of post-Bartók, post-Schoenberg’s
language; then you had an intuitive, aleatory period. How would you
characterize your movement now?
Well, yes, it’s
changed, for good. I finally feel safe and secure in this sonic picture; it’s
something that I’ve been in search of for a very long time. It was a long
process of going trough different states of mind; I was competing with myself
only. Of course, partly, I did it by analysing my earlier works, dropping off
extra materials, notes, leaving some parameters behind, intuitively keeping
what was good. Inspired by Stockhausen’s integral serialism, Scelsi’s sound
approach, and Reich’s pulsative, minimalistic music, I’ve added new approaches such
as body movement, movement through space, moving speakers around, amps, noise, voco-visuals
as scores, performance art in general, and total experimental situations,
expression which can go up to the unknown. So this music doesn’t depend on
musical language/parameters only – there’s much more into it, it’s like a
polymedia composition. That’s now a musicologist’s or an art historian’s job to
give further analysis. I’m going to continue with this new media avant-garde direction,
and I believe that there is a lot more I can discover within myself to add to
my future works. The good thing is that I enjoy workin’ and thinking as never
before.
As a polymedia
artist, you express yourself
through art performance, video and sound installation, paintings, drawings and
photography, which is a confirmation that you are full of ideas and have the
multiple abilities to express them. What do you think about today's Serbian art
scene?
I’m not impressed by
the current art situation in Serbia. Honestly, it’s very unclear, with no any
direction at all, full of replicas that we already know of. Even those replicas
are badly done – they are replicas that don’t go a step further; there is no
thinking process, only trivial ideas in which the artists do not even believe.
We adopted a global idea of the capitalistic system that
destroys the spiritual, art and music in general. That is partly because of a
’democratic’ behaviour among the circles of established and unknown artists,
with the motto: if I can’t beat them, I’ll join them. As Vladan Radovanović said:
If I can’t beat them, I won’t join them. I’d add to this, that they are already
beaten – individuality always wins in the end. The funny thing is that we are currently
seeing more of a fake neo-liberal expression – everyone is spreading peace
around, just because they are well paid by dubious organisations to do so. The
eminent artists in Serbia are not artists anymore, or artists-in-residence, but
rather artists-in-management. In this way, we have lot of them going around the
world, making exhibitions and concerts that don’t mean anything, just as folkor
troops during Tito’s time. People who follow those manifestations, their
fellows exchangers, are also in the same business, because this is a worldwide
problem, and, unfortunately, art suffers. For example, Serbia’s pavilion at the
Venice Biennale 2015 has the ‘United Dead Nations’ installation by Ivan Grubanov: good, I thought
that idea was interesting, but he needed to be more confrontational. Grubanov
was also over the ‘democratic’ cause; for example, he left a few of the ‘dead’ countries out: Pavelić’s NDH, Nazi Germany
and Mussolini’s Italy. If that was his idea, Grubanov should have added them in
his work. Sadly, those countries are stronger than ever. Regarding the visual
aspect of the installation, well, it’s also unfinished, and it’s kind of kitschy
from my perspective. In the end, Merenik’s statement was that their exhibition
was the best thing
that happened to Serbia in the 21st
century, alluding to media acceptance, and maybe even further. Well, that’s a
scandalous remark. We need radical changes, with a radical approach, non-compromising,
with an idea, with a bit of new, with a respect of the line that goes from the
Renaissance up to the avant-garde movements.
You mentioned Schoenberg, Webern, Zorn, Mandić... Many of them dropped out of the Universities, but they had a big
influence in the history of music and art . What was your reason for leaving
FMU?
We have the same kind
of ‘touristic art’ in music. For example, Žebeljan’s ‘success’ is well fabricated
by the past ‘democratic’ movement, and now it’s continuing with the current
political system. Also, her music is the worst kind of academic: neo-classical, ethnic-kitschy gobelins, nothing new,
nothing inventive or brave. But the problem goes further: she is pushing her students, ‘composers’ with no integrity and
morals, people who play at weddings and funerals, who will educate newcomers.
That’s the dangerous part, very dangerous, and that is one of the reasons I
left FMU in the end. So half-talented ‘composers’ will be giving their opinion tomorrow?
They will destroy everything good that was built since the beginning of the
academy, by destroying the individuality, doing something that even Communists didn’t
do – by bringing the idea of ‘collective’ madness, just because they have
various university degrees. I would say: let’s rave in a fuckin’ grave, all
together, now! Luckily, there are
great professors at the University. I went to FMU to study with Srđan Hofman.
He was the only reason I was there, and I’m proud of those years I spent
learning from him. I’ve also gained a great amount of knowledge from Sonja
Marinković, Svetlana Savić, Vera Milanković, Vesna Mihić, and Svetislav Božić.
The rest of the classes didn’t interest me at all; I skipped them since I
realised that those so-called professors don’t belong there, either as
intellectuals or musicians. After six years, I left the building with no
degree, glad that my name will never be on the paper which is now being held by
many of them who are mostly uneducated, mute people without any idea what the world
is about and what music and art should be.
You are generally
very provocative and rebellious as we can see in your art or hear it in your
compositions. And here, you said a lot of things that many think, but they are
afraid to say in public. From where this bravery comes from?
This
is due to ultra conservative, anti-Semitic, racist surrounding, ultra parochial
musical institutions, and half-talented disoriented artists who misused my
ideas by trying to shut out my progressive thoughts. As the last masterpiece in
the twentieth century was called ’’MIROSLAV MANDIĆ FUCKS EVERYBODY’S MOTHER’’,
I say: ALEN ILIJIĆ WILL FUCK YOU ALL.