Milica Tomić
Notes on Surreal Serbian Arts and Politics 

The work of artist Milica Tomić, who was born in Belgrade in what was then Yugoslavia, poses questions about political, economic and structural violence as well as social amnesia. She attempts to understand and reveal the inseparable connection between intimacy and politics. In doing so, she uses various areas and methods of contemporary practice in an interdisciplinary way. Tomić is one of the founders of Grupa Spomenik (Monument Group) – an art and theory group that creates space for political and critical discussions about the devastating legacy and effects of the wars in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and creates public space for them.

To this end, she has set up reading and discussion groups, organized lecture performances and invested a great deal of energy in her own education by meeting victims, perpetrators and witnesses of extreme acts of terror, genocide and ethnic cleansing. She is also the founder of the anti-disciplinary project Four Faces of Omarska (2009 – 2014) and initiator of the independent exhibition space ​“Annenstraße 53” in Graz, Austria (2020 – 23). Tomić is professor and head of the Institute for Contemporary Art at the Graz University of Technology.

In this talk, Tomić will guide us through the exhibition, focusing on the Belgrade surrealist group of the 1920s around Marko Ristić (*1902 Belgrade, † 1984 Belgrade) and the neo-surrealist artists Radomir Reljić and Leonid Šeika (*1932 in Belgrade, † 1970 in Belgrade), who was also a member of the artist group Mediala. In addition, she will also address the current volatile situation in Belgrade and Serbia, which has been marked by numerous protests lead by students, the education and cultural sectors and civil society in favor of a properly functioning judiciary and institutions, and against corruption and autocratic political structures.