Home — milenko matanovic • artist

artist and community activator milenko matanovic was born in 1947 in ljubljana, slovenia (then the republic of yugoslavia).

his unique, art-centric process for uniting multiple voices around a common goal began in the 1960s as a founding member of the slovene neo-avant-garde movement OHO— a collaborative of visual artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians and theorists.

using visual poetry, drawings, paintings and objects, milenko challenged the status quo of what art was and how we experience it.

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OHO group

In recognizing nature and landscapes as art in their own right, he realized that everyone, by way of everyday interactions with their surroundings, was an artist.

This viewpoint, which flew in the face of traditional definitions of art and artists, quickly graduated to conceptual projects, actions and happenings where he explored how democratizing art fostered equality.

OHO group

Pomegranate Center

Milenko’s experiences growing up under a vastly different political system were a stark contrast to the American way of life, and these observations were also incorporated into his creative process of pushing art into life. In 1986 he founded the non-profit Pomegranate Center outside of Seattle, Washington to use this methodology for helping communities resolve real-world problems.

Pomegranate Center

Daily Art Fitness - Watercolors and Inks

Milenko continues to create visual art that represents his principles of collaboration with surrounding environments and people, with daily rituals in watercolor, inks and installations on big and small scales. most recently his work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana to great acclaim.

Watercolors and Inks

Recent Installations

In the Spring of 2018, Milenko was invited to hold a retrospective exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art is Ljubljana: WAVES - 50 years of Milenko Matanovič’s Art. The exhibit featured six new installations.

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get in touch

info[at]milenkom[dot]com
(425) 998-7836‬

for more information on hiring milenko as a consultant, mentor or educator in community engagement and collaboration, please visit

www.milenkom.com

“Whatever else art may mean to different people, at its core is the idea that human acts can be elegant in their expression, beautiful in form, resonant in relationship to people, materials, and community, and magical in their capacity to connect the part to the whole, whether that part is a brushstroke in a painting, a word in a poem, a piece of stone in a wall, a single note in a concert, a building in the city, or a town in the landscape.”