Syndicate: Miroslav Mandic / The Rose of Wandering

[Aleksandar & Branka Davic <spiridon@eunet.yu> (by way of Andreas Broeckmann)]

[this is a text by dragica felja about the multimedia artist miroslav
mandic and his ten years long project "The Rose of Wandering". last three
years he is realising his project in yugoslavia, because of well known
reasons as embargo, visa, money etc. whoever may be interested in his work
or project "The Rose of Wandering" can send a message, observation or text
to my e-mail address. branka]



Miroslav Mandic and the Rose of Wandering

His Life

Miroslav Mandic is in his forty-eighth year. His strong features lend
him a rough look. He definitely looks. He is dressed in blue, wearing
sneakers and a backpack. He can often be seen reading on the move. He
also wears his glasses on those occasions. In a catalogue, he once wrote

the following about himself:

 1949 - 1969 - Child, a boy, fatherless.
    Not too extreme poverty.
    Football.
    Yearning for justice.
    Fire inside my head.
    Film.
    Efforts towards finding taste.
 1969 - 1971 - Art flew straight into me.
    Revolt.
    Beaming.
    Charisma.
1971 - 1981 - Abstaining from art to the point of pain and
dissolution.
    Punishment and guilt.
    Prison.
    Lostness, until freedom.
    Not-knowing.
    Non-humanity.
    Spirituality.
    Eradication.
    Astonishment.
    Mysticism.
 1981 -   Art again.

These fragments, this outline may be expanded by reading Mandicâs works,

which tell us the following... He was born on the outskirts of Novi Sad.

His father died when he was eight. His mother was cleaning up offices,
hence the ãnot too extreme povertyä. Lunch eaten from newspapers.
Cutting shoes open when his feet grew too large for them. Slightly
rotten apples. Bread and margarine. He used to play football in the
junior team of the ãVojvodinaä Football Club and according to the words
of local football-freaks: ãHe would have made a significant career if he

had continued to play football.ä In 1970 the twenty year old Mandic
became involved in art as the founding member of the art group ãKODä,
which was, along with the Slovenian group ãOHOä, the representative of
Yugoslav conceptualism. Feeling the need for a more profound experience,

he ceased his artistic activities after a year and his last, farewell
article, published in the ãòJ SIMPOSIONä literary journal got him
sentenced to nine months in prison. ãI was and have remained guilty.
However, my guilt is much greater than my sentence. That is why I write,

in order to scream, so that I would scream one day. Until then I want to

sing, because if not for music then why was I in prison?ä (No, I Donât
Believe This Sentence Cannot Be Heard - the book he wrote thirteen years

later about his prison days). Having served his sentence, opting for not

knowing, non-humanity, patience, sluggishness and shame, he spent ten
years in anonymity and asceticism. During that time he ãdevotedä himself

to beating carpets, working in a potterâs workshop, at a building
site... Finally, in 1981 he got involved in art again.

According to the words of film director Dusan Makavejev, Miroslav Mandic

is the ãcreator of new trendsä. He is by all means one of the most
influential figures for young artists. Working with film, the visual
arts and literature, he uses walking as his chief method of expression,
in other words, working with all art forms, he leaves behind a large
number of creations. Complete devotion, according to him, is the
ãeveryday involvement in a perpetual present.ä In reality, he seems to
be weaving a single imaginary, virtual thread through all of his
creations, which also include his own self. Ever since he got involved
in art and started to exercise the ideal of the unity of life and art,
this still being a constant in his life, these two fields can no longer
be distinguished from each other. This conscious and constant pushing
forward of the limits of personal freedom reminds us of the following:
ãI want to make my life into a Henry David Thoreau poem or one
illustrating Witgensteinâs sentence �Tell them I have lived a wonderous
life.âä

His Work

Mandicâs work as an artist began in 1970. Besides his early engagement
in the group ãKODä, his chief work consists of the following:

ãA Manä - Taking photographs of his own face once a month until the end
of his life, which, according to him, sprang forth ãout of a supposition

that wonder lies within myself, that instead of waiting in expectation
of a wonder I shall simply wonder and produce wonders.ä

Mandic created his first ten-year project ãLeaves - The Tree of Lifeä
between 1975 and 1985. A total of 3650 sketches make up a complete
picture whose size is 2.7x20m. A picture, which is the affirmation of:
affirmation, the invisible, repetition, creation through time.

He started making use of walking as a form of artistic activity ever
since his 1983 performance titled ãA Road to America or the New Life of
>>the Indiansä. It consisted of eight hours of slow walking along an
eight-meter long path, accompanied by eight centuries of music from the
12th to the 20th century, selected by M. L. Pashu.

ãFour walks for poetryä were to follow. The first walk in 1984, from
Radicevic to Njegos and Presern. Strazilovo - Lovcen - Kranj. The second

walk, from Presern to Friedrich Hšlderlin. Kranj - TŸbingen. The third
walk from Hšlderlin to Rimbaud. TŸbingen - Charleville. The fourth walk
>from Rimbaud to Blake. Charleville - London.

ãThe Twelve Copied Novelsä (1985 - 87), twelve pictures (size 50x70 cm),

were created by transforming words into pictures, by copying twelve
novels by Yugoslav authors to the letter, thus producing an energy of
admiration.

In 1987, in The Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, as a part of the

performance ãThe Writing Manä, he spent nine months publicly writing a
novel. Two manuscripts came to life as a result of  this experience:
ãScenes from the Museumä and ãThe Writing Manä.

The year 1989 saw the performance bearing the title: ãA Public Cleaning
of the Public Lavatory in Banja Lukaä - dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi.

He started his second ten year project ãThe Rose of Wanderingä - ten
years of walking across Europe in London, from Blakeâs grave, and he is
currently engaged in it.

His Books

Mandic wrote his first book, I Am You Are Him between the springs of
1981 and 1982. The first sentence of the book ãI am springä starts a
series of sentences, each written in a single day, ending it with: ãI am

a budä forming a circle (of light). According to Mandic, it is a book
about the ãaffirmation of the divine Selfä. Ten years after that, from
1991 to 1992, he wrote Kaja or I Am You Are Him II. The books I Am You
Are Him and Kaja are the first two in a cycle he is planning to write in

2001 - 2002 and in 2011 - 2012.

Warsaw, ãa sack-book, a beggarâs sackä was written in the course of a
single night (between 10.15 p. m. 28/12/1986 and 7.06 a. m. 29/12/1986).

No I Donât Believe This Sentence Cannot Be Heard, (1987) is a book about

prison. ãSinging gently into the readerâs ear.ä

Four poetry walks yielded three books: Walking for Poetry (1988), A
Child a Boy (1991), The Innocent Path (1992).

So far, the project titled ãThe Rose of Wanderingä produced five out of
ten volumes of the book The Rose of Wandering.

A diversity of form and ways of expression in his books and works make
Miroslav Mandic a unique artistic personality, to whom classifications
and subdivisions into aesthetic genres are of no importance whatsoever.
Let us quote the author himself:

I am a poet because I write poetry because by writing beguide (seduce
and lead) the world.
I am a poet because for a poet the whole world is but a tiny poem.
I am an artist because an artist creates out of nothing and nothing
seen.
I am an artist because an artist gives birth and that which is created
lives in eternity.
I am a philosopher because I only observe and by doing nothing I
safeguard the world with wisdom.
I am a fool because I am free and beloved by God.
I am a fool because I utter that which others dare not.
I am a wanderer in order to commend myself unto Godâs arms.
I am a wanderer for I do not even seem to have myself.
I am a beggar and I beg so that others wouldnât reach bottom.
I am a beggar so that I could beg and beg for others, so that I could
say thanks and praise others.
I am a monk because I am beatified not only by my life but also by my
birth and my death.

The Rose of Wandering - Ten years of walking across Europe

ãThe Rose of wandering is for me the most exciting project of which I
know at the moment... Ten years of one manâs life transformed into ten
years of art. Such an abundance leaves one simply breathless, augmenting

the feeling of being lost before the edge of infinity. However, Mandicâs

wanderings, that network of wanderings which will eventually
interconnect the whole of Europe in a real - unreal way, restore the
feeling of safety to us and renew the sense of things. Mandicâs Rose is
a magical rebirth of a long-lost unity, a path towards serenity.ä

David Albahari

The best way to start the story of the ten year project ãThe Rose of
>>Wanderingä is with a section from the book No I Donât Believe This
Sentence Cannot Be Heard written in prison:

I reach out towards the sky
and I say:
That is art.
Why?
Because no one has seen it.

Having spent almost three years in its preparation, Mandic made the
first step of ãThe Rose of Wanderingä from Blakeâs grave in London on
September 9th 1991. Since then he has walked 20 km each day which, in
five years, adds up to about 35,000 km. Until the end of the project in
2001, the trail of the blue virtual rose will be 60,000 kilometers long.

In the course of his everyday walks, Mandic compiles his poetic notes
which are published every year in the form of a book. Apart from that,
his pencil leaves a trail of sketches, one each day, depicting herbs,
which will make up a cycle of 3650 sketches under the title of ãThe
Herbs of Europeä. His solemn Sunday walks, ãMonuments to the Anonymous
Forces of Loveä and ãI Ask for the Passport of the Man on the Moveä are
in fact sub-project of this ten year project. Pausing from his walks in
cities, Mandic has given two series of lectures during the fifth and
this, the sixth, year of ãThe Rose of Wanderingä.

Mandicâs three basic symbols are the road, the rose and wandering. He
defines the road as follows:

ãThe road is the largest man-made structure in this world. Manâs
greatest achievement. Unlike houses, which eventually fall into ruins,
roads last forever. I have had some little experience of its tolerance
and wisdom. In ten years, I think I shall become an excellent student of

its.ä

To Mandic, the rose is:

ãA world of non-violence. Non-violence takes the greatest courage of
>>all, and that is why the rose is a hero. I think of the rose as a future

teacher of harmony. The rose is food for the soul.

He says the following of wandering:

ãWandering is inevitable, that is why I accept it. Wandering is the best

way of living and reaching certainty. The wanderings of The Rose of
Wandering are dedicated to all those who have been and still are
searching, all those who search and seek for others.ä

Wandering is association, analogy, metamorphosis, metaphor.
Wandering is a quest for oneâs own self.
Wandering gives birth to the wandererâs luminous essence.
Wandering is the reliance of oneâs essence on wandering.
Wandering into a million-year-old past preparing ahead for a million
years of future.
Wandering is a book that is being written, painted and walked along.
Wandering is a church. A mobile shrine.
Wandering is discovering the center.
Wandering is the worship of the periphery.
Wandering is the Homeland.
I shall wander
- because ãThe Rose of Wanderingä is my admiration of beauty on European

ground and it is also the incorporating of that beauty into Earthâs
cosmic future.
- because ãThe Rose of Wanderingä is for me a mythological journey
towards a new form. Ten springs, ten summers, ten autumns and ten
winters.
- because ãThe Rose of Wanderingä is a prayer. A prayer to the beauty of

the rose, the wisdom of wandering and the sensuality of wandering.ä

The Rose of Wandering is on course. We can learn about this blue flower
which springs out of European ground by walking along with Miroslav
Mandic, picturing a virtual flower sprout from human footsteps,
visualizing the joys and experiences of this great wandering which is
reminiscent of Homer or Joyce, or reading the volumes of ãThe Rose of
>>Wanderingä which are defined by Mandic as a novel, poetry, a journal and

a religious text.

ãPoetry is beauty and gentleness. A novel is humor and music. A journal
is wisdom and sincerity. A mystical text is freedom and the divine.ä

These books give us the opportunity to wander ourselves, to read them in

a countless number of ways and adopt parts of it. For instance:

67. Walking

The lives of women and bridges along and over the Rhine. I get lost in
big cities like bread-crumbs do in a whirlwind, and the smell of all
those, who, like myself, crawl along this Earth clings to me, so much so

that, whether I want it or not, I am a man. This means that in some
years I shall disappear, along with everyone else, from the face of this

Earth. I am calm, I am here now. My groin feels warm. My soul is getting

warm inside my body. I hurry across the tracks in front of a streetcar.
Along the street, across the street and along the other side. It is so
wondrous simply to be.
KÅ¡ln, January 24th 1992



Text: Dragica Felja

Translation by Kristof Karolj Bodric