Dragan Ilic, Serbian - Australian - American artist, lives and works in New York and Belgrade. In the forty-five years of Ilic's art practice he has been investigating the balance between help and hinderance in the technologies of artistic production. In his performances and installations of the seventies and early eighties, Ilic began using fistfulls of pencils thrown at walls, at himself, bundled together, clamped, or fastened to drills. As his work developed through the eighties and nineties, Ilic created increasingly complex tools in response to advancements in technology. These tools incorporated a range of mark-making materials from pencils to poured paint to lasers, working over surfaces including paper, canvas, and metals. His interest in creating a symbiosis between humans and technology led him to extend the body through video projections and robotic machines which began as simple movable platforms and evolved into robotic devices that could be controlled remotely by the artist or by the participating audience. In his exhibition at the Experimental Film/Video Festival, Tokyo in 1988, inspired by investigations in contemporary physics of the multiverse, Ilic drew on paper with amplified sound, simultaneously projecting images onto moving balloons while performing in specially constructed simulated "virtual reality" suit with attached T.V. Helmet. Ilic's work combines a laborious and highly meticulous process, often requiring months of careful assembling of tools, with a instinctive, visceral, and often controversial performative experience. Some of his works, such as his ongoing performance, "The People I Don't Like," are overtly political, offering the audience an opportunity to hurl sharpened pencils at him while he invokes the names of people in power whose actions he questions. Other works seek to highlight the systems of technologies that serve us and in turn codify human behavior. His work has been termed post-subjective, a designation that indicates a reordering of artistic authorial hierarchies. While Ilic remains in control as the grand architect of his devices, his collisions with its failings question notions of authorship and ownership as humanity moves into ever-increasing partnerships with the technologies we create. Ilic founded the experimental performance space ITS-Z1 in Belgrade in 2009, which serves as a platform for the intersection of art and science and has hosted internationally-acclaimed experimental artists such as Stelac. Ilic's work has been featured in television presentations and shown in numerous performance spaces, galleries, and museums internationally including Documenta, PS 1 MoMa, the Center for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade, Queens Museum of Art, and recently at the Museum of Science in Boston as a part of National Robotics Week, April 2010.
1986 Dov S-S Simens' Film School, Millenium Film Center, New York
1976 Canberra Art School, Canberra, Australia
1968-69 Sumatovacka School of Fine Art, Serbia
2010ID Space, New York 2009 “The People I Don't Like”, CZKD (Center for Cultural Decontamination), Belgrade, Serbia / “The People I Don't Like”, Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, Sloveni 2004 “Roboaction 2” Gallery SKC, Belgrade, Serbia / “Roboaction 1” Gallery of Cultural Centre, Novi Sad 2003 Drawing and Sculptural Installation, Kentler International Drawing Space, New York 1993 Drawing Installation, Mac Gallery, Pusan, South Korea 1986 "Aesthetics of Outer space”, lnstallation, Drawing, Audio-Video, Performance, Ground Zero, New York 1985 Drawing Installation, Sculpture and Documentation, Tamura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan / Drawing Installation, Sculpture and Video, Civilian Warfare Gallery, New York 1982 Sculpture, Drawing and Installation, Offen Gallery, Ke1n / Sculpture, Drawing and Installation, Gallery 73, Belgrade / "Don't Carry Mugger Money”, Sculpture and Drawing, Streets of New York 1981 Sculpture and Drawing, Gallery А, Amsterdam / Installations, Drawing and Film, Lara Vincy Galerie, Paris / Gallery Cogeme, Casino Khokkke, Brussels 1980 Sculpture, Drawing, Braathen-Galozzi Gallery, New York / Installations of drawing and film, Jan Cicero Gallery, Chicago
2010 Museum of Science in Boston, National Robotics Week, April 17 2009 “Fluid v2”, Queens Museum of Art, New York 2007 “The People I Don't Like”, Bios Gallery, Athens 2006 “Roboaction 3”, Bios Gallery, Athens 2004 Drawing, Dissel, New York 1987 "Eye of the Storm", Tamura gallery, Tokyo, Sugizak Gallery; Photo exhibition, Sendai, Les Bois Gallery, Osaka 1985 Semaphore Gallery, New York; "Projections for '85", Kamakazi Gallery, New York 1984 “25,000 Sculptures”, Civilian Warfare Gallery, New York; Drawing, Limbo Lounge at PS 1, New York; Sculptures, Santa Barbara Museum, Santa Barbara 1983 Pier 34, New York "Don't Carry Mugger Money" – Drawing; Money Show Storefront, New York, Drawing; Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, "А Co1ab Project", Sculptures and multiples; The Ritz Hotel, Washington DC, Installations and sculptures; Fashion Мода, New York, Drawing; ABC No Rio, New York, Installation of postcards 1982 “Multiple Sculpture Liquide", Documenta 7, Kassel; “Monumental Redefined”, New York; "Ten Yugoslav Artists", Sculptures, Alternative Museum, New York 1980 Sculptures, Braathen-Galozzi Galerija, New York; Drawing , Wagga Wagga Invitational, Wagga Wagga, New York; Sculptures and Drawing, Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne; Drawing, West Street Gallery, Sidney 1972 Centre Cineman Gallery, Canbera
2004 RTS 2, Belgrade 1983 "Х Art 35", Performance, Manhattan Cable N- Channel ј 1978 "Electronic pencils - Х" (fragments)Channel 7, Sidney "Electronic pencils - Х111" (fragments)NBC Channel 7 News, Chicago “Electronic pencils - Х11" (fragments)ABC Channel 5 News 1977 "Electronic pencils - V1" (fragments) Channel 9, Sidney
New Wilderness Foundation Inc., New York Kiki Smith, private collection
50,000 pencils to school children in East Timor
