Cosmic Eye

By Natasa Tepavcevic

Belgrade, Sept. 14, 2009 (Serbia Today) - Exhibition “Cosmic Eye” is open from September 6th until September 13th 2009 at Gallery of Cultural Center “Dom Omladine” in Belgrade. The author of the exhibition is Milica Živadinović. Exhibition is realized as part of the global celebrations of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA 2009), marking four hundred years since Galileo Galilei’s first observations by telescope.
Project is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technological Development-Republic of Serbia, in coordination with The Scientific Computing Laboratory (SCL) at the Institute of Physics in Belgrade.
The exhibition “Cosmic Eye” is a part of the project "Cosmic Harmony" which is inspired by the phenomenon of the universe and idea of existence of relationship between the human eye and planetary systems. Sight directed into space and whirl of solar cities, creative network of Milica Živadinović stretches to unexplored area of the human eye in which universe is ,reflected.
Some as our galactic neighborhood is known thanks to recordings of Hubble Space Telescope. Our eye hides range of divine combination of shades, and as the universe changes, grows and shrinks, changing shapes and colors, so the human eye gains life marks, the new spaces and brightness.
"Cosmic Harmony" is a big installation and it consists of different 3-dimensional forms. What are 3-dimensional forms in Milica’s case? She exhibited objects, installations, sculptures, assemblages or we can say that her “cosmic eyes” are something in between or mix of the conventional (in a sense of art history) forms of objects-installations-sculptures-assemblages.
Some of the pieces are hand-made, so we can recognize them as sophisticated sculptures and some of the objects are produced by factories (that’s what we called post-production in the domain of visual art). For example, the assemblage pieces like the one titled “Water” or pieces “Woman” or “Hell” are three-dimensional artistic compositions, made by putting together found objects, but objects titled “Earth” or “Air” are ordered and produced in factories. “Earth” is actually the leather ball but there is a prints of dollar-images on the leather’s surface. I wanted to emphasize these examples, in order to show the artistic sensibility of Milica Živadinović as conceptual artist. She is kind of artist whose ideas dictate the artistic process.
"Time of Tetraktys" is installation in which the connection between cosmic landscapes and philosophical concept concentrates in the thoughts of Greek philosophers, by whom "the mysteries of the universe can be inferred only with numbers and shapes, so the installation of planetary systems was organized by Pythagora’s symbolism of numbers based on specific figure – Tetraktys.
What is Tetraktys, and why Tetraktys?
Cosmic symbolism of numbers in Pythagoras learning is based on a specific figure named tetraktus (quadripartite number). Tetractys is consisting of ten points, arranged regularly to form structure of a decade in a form of equilateral triangle. Derived total of points in rows gives a decade 1+2+3+4=10. Every planet symbolized the element of Pythagoras pyramid: 1-Divine, 2-Man/Woman, 3-levels of life: Heaven, Earth, Hell and 4-four elements: Water, Earth, Air, Fire.
This symbols Milica used as titles of her objects/assemblages.
The secret of Universe could only be comprehended through numbers and forms. For Pythagoras and his followers Tetractys was a key of understanding the nature itself. By transmitting a numerical expressions of proportions and harmonies, from music and speech to the world as whole, Pythagoreans talked about so called cosmic harmony.
Ivana Misirilic Bigard wrote about Milica’s work in catalogue of exhibition “Cosmic Eye”. All who are interested to read more about Milica Živadinović’s work, can visit her web cite: www.milicazivadinovic.com. It is also possible to find the records of her exhibitions on you tube.
Milica Živadinović was born in 1975, in Belgrade. She lives and works in Paris since 1999. She graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Versailles in 2001 , as a scholar of the French Government. She got her master's degree in 2005 and is currently working on PhD at the University of Paris and UNESCO scholarship for 2007 year. She is author of numerous solo exhibitions in Paris and Belgrade, and participant in numerous collective exhibitions since 1999.