New exhibition at GMK
Opening on September 5th, 7:00 PM, GMK (Šubićeva 29)
Exhibition open until September 21st
Free admission
Gallery hours > Tue-Fri: 2 PM – 8 PM / Sat: 10 AM – 3 PM
Mila Panić, a Bosnia-born artist known for her prolific stand-up comedy career as well as installations, and drawings, once again starts a narrative of tender social experiments through speech and modes of self-inflicting, dark humor. With her practice, Panić bridges the gap between what people consider fine art and comedy, dwelling on the ideas of family, diaspora, and belonging.
HURTS SO GOOD showcases her drawings, self-portraits with textual interventions, and, for the first time, her stand-up performances that are to be displayed on old TV screens—thus blending her already existing material into a new coalesced body of work.
By combining these seemingly incompatible practices, stand-up comedy, and visual art, the artist questions the exhibition space and its capacities, proving that there is both room and a need for humor there as well as in art institutions in general. Panić uses comedy as a means of subversion and through it speaks on what we consider to be grave aspects of our everyday lives, with humor becoming a tool for digesting painful-to-swallow topics that we normally avoid talking about. She is intuitive in her approach to the working process itself, sourcing topics to address primarily from her own experiences and observations of the society we live in. In today’s zeitgeist, when we are fully aware of what topics might be “sensitive” or polarizing and don’t dare to bring them up in fear of condemnation, Panić addresses these topics from the perspective of a witness, offering testimony to the expanded meaning of the evolving concept of corpoliteracy*: she invites us to interpret her facial expressions while weaving written and spoken narratives that blend facts and fiction.
By highlighting the absurdities of armed conflicts, displacement, migration, and living in between different languages and geographies, she uses her stand-up comedy to foster a culture of resistance to dominant narratives, censorship, and whatever is considered taboo. Moreover, Panić creates a safe place for the audience with whom she wants to enter into a dialogue—for a joke is only a joke if someone laughs; her performance is therefore not only one-way or authoritative: she encourages us to freely verbalize our ideas and thoughts without fear as a response.
In IF I STOP SMILING, a series of artists’ self-portraits with visual and textual interventions, she confronts notions of identity and silence by revealing the ambiguity of a single smile—it seems like she is asking us to think more deeply about who is allowed to speak up, who is allowed to laugh, and about what. By turning discomfort into endurance through subversive and restorative laughter, Mila Panić seeks pleasure emerging from pain: it hurts so good, yet it feels even better.
*Corpoliteracy is a concept developed by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, used as an effort to contextualize a body as a platform and a medium of learning, a structure or organ that acquires, stores, and disseminates knowledge. We interpret gestures as body movements equal to the phenomenon of storytelling and a means of transcending the boundaries of language.
Antonela Solenički & Petar Vranjković
Mila Panić (BA, 1991.) is a Bosnian-born artist and stand-up comedian. Her artist’s practice ranges from personal documentation to highly poetic visual and discursive elements through which she creates a cycle that interprets the various inheritances of migration. She is the host of Broken English podcast, which explores the politics of language and the question of how is to live between two or more languages. She is the co-founder of the collective and association Fully Funded Residencies.eV.
Her most recent solo exhibitions were in eastcontemporary Gallery (Milan), Kuenstlerhaus Sootburn (Hamburg) and group shows – Autostrada Bienalle, Montagehalle, HbK Braunschweig etc. Exhibition Panic is the winner of ZVONO YVVA of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and recipient of a number of scholarships such as Stiftung Kunstfond Bonn grant for 2023, Braunschweig Projects artist grant 2022/23, Koganecho Baazar A-i-R Manager Internship in Residence (Japan), Künstlerhaus Lukas, Ahrenshoop, Residency Unlimited, New York (US), etc.
Curators: Antonela Solenički & Petar Vranjković
Producer: Tea Matanović
GMK Director: Maja Pavlinić
Portrait Photographer: Nikola Kekerović
Photography: Luka Pešun
Production: Generator multidisciplinarnih koprodukcija (GMK)
Special thanks to: What, How & for Whom / WHW, Ana Kovačić, Jela Vuković, Miroslav Matanović, Marijana Bartolić, Tanja Vernić, Milena Kovačić, Zoran Kranjčec, Hrvoje Barlović
This project is supported by: Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb, Creative Europe – Culture Moves Europe GMK is supported by: Kultura Nova Foundation, INA d.d.
The views and opinions expressed belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Miroslav Kraljević Gallery or the institutions involved in the realization of the project. None of the aforementioned institutions can be held responsible for these views.
