David Maljkovic

"The 'Retired Form' film evokes a public monument complex in the Memorial Park Dotrscina, dedicated to the victims of WW2 in Zagreb, by sculptor Vojin Bakic. On the one hand, he is perceived as an 'authentic' modernist sculptor, the main figure of the break-up with socialist realism who forged the paths for abstractin and freedom of artistic expression in the 1950s, and on the other, as a 'state artist' in service to socialist ideology. Bakic is highly acclaimed in official art histories, yet his monuments to the anti-fascist struggle were devastated and destroyed in the heat of the nationalism and anti-Communism of the 90s." From: Galerija Nova Newspapers no. 17, special issue on the occasion of the exhibition 'David Maljkovic - Retired Compositions', jan 17 - feb 21, 2009, Metro Pictures, New York