When Milena Putnik approaches the disturbed landscapes that she investigates, she attempts to convey her observation with the means that restore the trace, i.e. indexicality of a region. Personally made photographic image is one such trace, another person’s aerial photographic image too, but this is also a comparison of two topographic maps, i.e. investigation of incongruences between the image and the map. All these traces and their mutual relationships in Milena Putnik’s works are subjugated to a process of seeing in order to fathom the forms that may materialise this seeing process. Hence the collage: the apparatus for perceiving the very process of seeing…
Abandoned and active surface mining pits, quarries and sites of erosion, tailings and transmission line systems, as well as all the ravines, furrows, canals, gashes, fluvial lines and alluvial masses – all these places and traces are relegated by Milena Putnik from factual registration to the realm of visual speculation. Hence in her practice this specific connection between map and photography, the connection which is actually destabilised rather than stabilised with each new work. Two forms of world representation thus enter mutual communication. (excerpt from the catalogue text by Branislav Dimitrijević, Après nous, le déluge. Disturbed Landscapes and Other Investigative Actions by Milena Putnik )
Milena Putnik (1976) received her BA and MA in the field of painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, while she earned her PhD in the field of multimedia art from the University of Art in Belgrade. Using photography and the classical media of painting, drawing and collage, she explores spatial phenomena, perceiving landscapes as spatialized mental representations. She realised her interest in the perception of open spaces as dynamic and multisensory phenomena, and landscapes as loci of reading and projection, through realisation of temporary exhibitions and group visits for public in non-gallery environments.
Since the beginning of her professional activity as an independent artist, she participated in numerous exhibitions in the country and abroad (solo exhibitions in Belgrade Youth Centre in 2002, Remont Gallery in 2004, Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade in 2006, Art Gallery of the Cultural Centre of Belgrade in 2009…), while she also received awards for her work (Vršac Youth Biennale 2002, Mangelos 2005). Since 2010, she has taught art programs at the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture of the Faculty of Forestry in Belgrade, while she has also been teaching at the doctoral studies of the University of Arts in Belgrade since 2020. In addition to her teaching work and projects (public exhibitions, spatial interventions in the exterior) that she realises with her students, she continues to develop her artistic-research concepts through solo exhibitions (City Gallery Požega 2017, Library of the City of Belgrade 2020, Bela Crkva Museum 2025) and cooperation with other artist (multiannual project Interspace (Međuprostor) with Nevena Popović, Mirjana Odić and Ana Piljić Mitrović; recent research The Future of Liminal Landscapes (Budućnost liminalnih predela) with Nemanja Lađić, Suzana Gavrilović and Milovan Milenković, produced by The Centre for the Promotion of Science 2023). She realised a number of projects in the field of management, presentation and digitalisation of cultural heritage for the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia and Faculty of Forestry in Belgrade.