CROSSING CULTURAL BORDERS
“Over the years, most of the exhibitions of the Publikum Calendar artworks have occurred in public places and were seen on average by 15,000 visitors annually. In a country where people don’t have the habit of going to galleries and museums this was an extraordinary result,” adds Mill. (The average number of visitors to a typical Serbian gallery or museum is a couple hundred people a month.) The Publikum Calendar continues to be printed and premiered in Belgrade. It is distributed to a select mailing list of 2,000 each November, but it now reaches millions with shows about it on Serbian television each year. In addition, audiences throughout the world experience the artwork via the project’s website: www.artkalendar.com. The 2007 Publikum Calendar, Paula Scher’s “Gobbledy-gook” (experiments in alphabet form and meaning), is scheduled to be launched at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade on Nov. 7, then at the New York Art Director’s Club on Nov. 28.

“In the ’90s, politics played a major role in everyday life in Serbia. In this period, the calendars and their launch events were very much a reflection of that. Living in poverty and impossible circumstances was a big inspiration to us. With the democratic changes that occurred in Serbia in 2001, we felt that it was time for a change in our project, too,” says Mill, “It became time to incorporate new, positive ideas and ways of thinking about ourselves and about the country.” Since 2001, the Publikum Calendar has acted as a cultural bridge, bringing artists and designers from other parts of the world to the project in an exchange of ideas and energies. They speak to a whole generation of Serbs who have been deprived of international culture because of the Balkan Wars. “We want to bring different ways of thinking and surprising new solutions to the calendars in order to influence young Serbian artists,” Mill says. In addition, special-edition books were created after 2001 in order to broaden the project. These accompanying books showcase more works by the calendar artists, sometimes revealing the process of the calendars’ making, and are delightful objects in themselves.

“We set out to create something that was going to benefit everybody and also be promotional advertising for Publikum, the company,” says Mill. The calendar has brought something special into the art and design world. The project continues now, working to help Serbians hungry for access to the rest of the world’s creative ideas to satisfy their curiosity and desire to belong to an international art community. “Art can change the world, we believe in that,” he concludes, “As a matter of fact, even in the worst times of the ’90s, when Serbia was under economic, political, and even a cultural blockade by the U.N., there was a significant flow of art projects that were addressing war and political and economical issues. For art and design there are no borders.”

PUBLIKUM CALENDAR | www.artkalendar.com