About the work

Saint Lothar is one of works comprising Marković’s Homeless Project, a series of Text Portraits based on 75 interviews with homeless men in Berlin, Belgrade, Tokyo, and Shanghai.

Translation of the Saint Lothar Text Portrait - fragment from 60 min. video-interview with homeless man Lothar Georke, made in Berlin in 2004:

God only gave us one nose, ‘cos we couldn’t’ve stuck two in the glass, we’d’ve had to lap up our wine… course, it’s a shame in’t it. Yeh, but I’ve no other motto left in my life, no sir, not since I saw that protest would be no good. Oh, I’m past the age of protest, what can I say? I don’t mean I agree with all that, but I’ve got so far now, I say what good can I do, it’ll soon be all over, yeh, like they say, yeh, I can’t change anything - don’t want to these days, sometimes takes a long time before you get it, see that all you’re doing is running around, for some folk or other to manipulate, an object of manipulation, that you’re being exploited some’ow, for their interests. Yeh, one way or another, it makes you sad, some’ow, yeh, so you say: fuck off, all of you, what the hell, yeh, That’s about it, In’t it, don’t know anything else. All be let out now, will it, eh

View the full interview with Lothar Georke: https://markovic.org/page/homeless/berlin_video.html

Artist Statement

The basis behind portraits of the homeless is using language and text, and not pictures as much in the traditional sense. I wanted to create a portrait out of an interview, bringing together the interview and the picture. An interview is already a kind of portrait. My creative work consists in choosing a central passage, a still, that is transfigured as an image. The subject would be recast as a global phenomenon, but this time anchored locally, and it should be an antithesis to glamour, fame and femme fatale images. Homelessness is a phenomenon of the city that occurs worldwide but is strongly centered in the local. The homeless in Homeless Project are men without house or home. In traditional societies, the man built the house in which the woman then settled…

I had not expected to get so much information about the state, social politics and society. That really surprised me, about how people lived in the GDR, that people also sent their mothers flowers, that in everyday life, people lived as people did in, say, Regensburg. Between East and West there is not such a great difference. But there are crucial differences that make one man homeless and not another: places where there was war or economic upheavals or floods, acts of God. The differences naturally include the cultural background and the moral climate. In India, for example, everyone gives the beggar money. In Germany, however, they expect him to find a respectable job. I learned a lot about the different cultures from what the subjects had to say....

Art is inherently political, and everything that goes on in the public sphere relates to its role. But as an artist, it is one thing to give a big speech and another to go beyond and find a way to draw attention to the work situation and the homeless. That requires give and take. That is a suggestion but not yet a solution. A solution? Such a project makes a momentary ripple and makes sure that different people deal with the subject of homelessness. Because everyone is potentially homeless.

– Milovan Destil Markovic

Bio

Milovan Destil Marković (b. in 1957 in Čačak, Serbia) is a visual artist who has exhibited extensively in Europe, Asia, Australia and in the Americas. His work was featured at 42nd Venice Biennial (Aperto ’86), 4th Istanbul Biennial, 46th Venice Biennial, 6th Triennial India New Delhi, 56th 49th 24th October Salon Belgrade Biennale, 2018 Lorne Sculpture Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart Berlin, Museum of Contemporary Art Kumamoto, MoMA PS1 New York, Moderna Museet Stockholm, Ludwig Museum Budapest, Saarland Museum Saarbrücken, The Artist’s Museum Lodz, National Museum Prague, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, MSURS Museum of Contemporary Art Banja Luka, Landesmuseum Graz, Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, National Gallery Athens, Art Museum Foundation Military Museum Istanbul, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, Kunstverein Hamburg, Kunstvoreningen Bergen, Kunstverein Jena, Galleri F15 Oslo, Nishido Contemporary Art Tokyo, Fei Contemporary Art Center Shanghai, Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana and many others.