Sandro Đukić | galerie michaela stock

The story behind the monument’s destruction adds layers of complexity to the project. Planed and constructed from 1958 to 1968, Vojin Bakić’s monumental sculpture built in Kamenska, Croatia, “The Monument to the Victory of the People of Slavonia” once stood as the European largest abstract sculpture. It was a thirty-meter-high stainless-steel monument. However, in 1992, members of the Croatian army demolished it using dynamite after multiple unsuccessful attempts, despite official reports attributing the collapse to “strong winds.” Three decades later, the curator of the project discovered meteorological data proving there was no wind that day. The air was so calm that it was officially termed “Silence” by the Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. This silence, along with the total lack of government and media reaction, inspired the project’s name “The Silence That Tore Down The Monument”.
During the tumultuous 90s in former Yugoslavia, Damnatio Memoriae and collective amnesia took hold. For this very reason, Đukić urged us to challenge the notion of decline and neglect, especially concerning the disappearance of modernist and industrial heritage in his earlier artworks. His collaboration with the local community, other artists, and technological experts highlights his dedication to this new art project to reconstruct the monument and delve into the intersection of art, technology, and social memory.

In the piece The Silence That Tore Down the Monument we recognize the collage of archival materials and the interpretation of artistic heritage with the application of new media art as the recognizable visual language of Sandro Đukić. For Đukić, the empty place, the place of devastation, the pedestal of the former monumental sculpture by Bakić, becomes the chosen place of a new beginning. In new virtual constructs, and with the help of Augmented Reality technology, collective memory and artistic interpretation fill that vacant place.

In addition to Sandro Đukić, the project team included: Milorad Pupovac (project concept), Davorka Perić, (project curator) and Lana Lovrenčić (author of the discursive program).
Project was produced with support of Serb National Council.
Excerpts from the text by Davorka Perić

More information about the art project can be found HERE