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Don´t Be Afraid
Milan Marin
04/08/2023
On our short journey from birth to death, we are faced with fear as one of the fundamental categories of survival. Deep existential fear is the engine of our civilization. Burdened with egoism, vanity and greed is the greatest and most terrifying power of our species. It produces all creative energy, and is also the price we pay for our overall civilizational progress. Fears trigger revolutions and wars, they are the roots of destruction, but also of development. The fear of death is deeply rooted in human consciousness. It homogenizes social communities, and enables the elite to control society, as well as each individual subject. All ideologies and all social arrangements have recognized fear as the basic means of power. The power of the elite is built on the existential fear of the people, and neoliberal capitalism has created the conditions for unlimited power. Modern media is an ideal space for fabricating all kinds of fears directed at the common people. Fear has become a product of the elite with the aim of creating more and more capital and power. The level of fear manipulation today would astound even the talented Joseph Goebbels. The hierarchy of fear permeates every pore of society, it is a way of achieving the goal and complete control of the lower layers. Today, when the media is more powerful than ever, we have reached a fascinating speed of spreading fear with information and misinformation. In the last resort, a person overcome by fear loses the ability to act with free will, ceases to be a person and becomes a thing.
How can we actually protect ourselves from being overcome by fear? Apparently, the roots of all fears are in ignorance and knowledge is the only category that can oppose fear and defeat it. Art in its own special way encourages these processes of social education. Through art, we reach spiritual knowledge, imperceptibly and effortlessly. The presence of art strengthens our emotional intelligence, it directs us to the only correct path, which is towards the ultimate good, and ultimately our greatest victory.
“Don’t Be Afraid” is a project that involves continuous productions of portraits of nameless persons that reveal the state of mind of a modern man through facial deformation. The portraits are made on different substrates, formats and techniques (canvas, paper, plywood, cardboard, etc.).
Milan Marin
Biography:
Milan Marin graduated in art history at the Faculty of Philosophy in Ljubljana and a master’s degree in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. He participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Italy, Sweden, France, Germany, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.
He has won more than fifty international awards and recognitions for his work.
His works can be found in many private and public collections (the collection of the city of Grožnjan, the fund of the Fontikus gallery, the fund of the Piran Coastal Gallery, the fund of the Milotić Gallery in Pula, the collection of the cities of Umag, Vodnjan, the Italian Union of Pula, Buja, Sečovlja, Kastva Rijeka, Novigrad (Istria) ), Novi Grad (BiH), Bosanska Gradiška (BiH). Two of his sculptures are located in the public areas of the city of Umag.
He is the president of the Croatian Society of Fine Artists of Istria.
He lives and works in Umag.