Catalogue > At random

Language Lesson (2016) intercuts two tracking shots -- a shaky handheld approach to the Yugoslav dictator’s mausoleum, with a smooth following shot of my Yugoslav mother walking through her Canadian apartment corridor, and entering the small living quarters in which she will almost certainly pass the remainder of her days. If she’s not exactly an exile, she’s certainly cut off from her past, her friends, the sites where she grew up and feels most familiar, or so we may imagine just upon hearing her accent, which comes in the form of voiceover, where she gives us a little lesson in speaking Serbian. She says things like, “This is here, this is mine, this is shit, I don’t like this…”, alternating in English, then Serbian (subtitled in French). The thoughts expressed range from neutral, to (perhaps) happy, to disappointed or displeased. As she walks, her thoughts seem to change. Similarly, a change happens on the approach to the mausoleum, which at first appears lavish, in sparkling marble. We don’t know at first where we are, other than in a cemetery, the burial site of someone very esteemed, wealthy, important. After short bursts of the approach, we eventually see the name of Tito, which perhaps causes us to reflect on opulence in a land where there was seldom plenty. The camera drops quickly to the ground, where we apprehend a struggle between a colony of ants, which crawl in and out of the cracks in the marble base of the crypt, each fighting for the corpse of a fly. Notions of sacrifice and fellowship in the common pursuit of attaining a progressive, egalitarian social order, rapidly give way to an each-for-their-own, eat-or-be-eaten state of affairs.

Born in Novi Sad (Serbia) and lives in Montréal (Canada) since 2005, Milutin Gubash has presented exhibitions in Québec, Canada, the United States, and Europe, including a solo show at Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2007) and a ten year survey exhibition co-produced by six institutions across Canada (Rodman Hall Art Centre 2011, Carleton University Art Gallery 2012, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery 2012, Southern Alberta Art Gallery 2012, Musée d’art de Joliette 2012 and Fonderie Darling 2013). He was the recipient of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec studio residency in Paris for 2016. His practice encompasses photography, video, and performance, and regularly features the participation of his family and friends, who portray versions of themselves in Do-It-Yourself soap operas, historical rewrites and improv theatre pieces. Using simple means and often absurdist gestures, Gubash reconsiders assumptions about the narratives of our identities, histories and environments.