Post-Millennium Tension is Radenko Milak's first exhibition in Berlin and his first institutional solo exhibition in Germany since his critically acclaimed show 365 at Kunsthalle Darmstadt in 2014. The title of the exhibition points to the show's underlying current depicting a world that has come off its hinges in the still-young 21st century. It refers to the second album by the British artist Tricky, who released Pre-Millennium Tension in 1996.

Milak's watercolours establish a connection to the collective unconscious by referencing decisive events of the early 21st century. In numerous black-and-white watercolours—some composed of many individual sheets assembled into monumental images—the artist, born in 1980 in Travnik, Bosnia, presents key moments of world history. These works, based on iconic photographs of current and past political and social events, are rendered in watercolour. By shifting from one medium (photography) to another (watercolour), Milak captures and reflects the growing tension, instability, and uncertainty of the world while maintaining a consistently neutral standpoint.

The exhibition forms a complex narrative that mirrors contradictory developments whose loose ends converge in the 21st century. Beginning with a reference to Francisco de Goya's Desastres de la Guerra (1810–14), Milak's paintings depict scenes ranging from the destruction of Cologne during the Second World War, to Stanley Kubrick's portrayal of artificial intelligence in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, to the Munich massacre of 1972, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and Berlin's present-day Berghain.
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The exhibition is accompanied by a 300-page publication encompassing the entire oeuvre of Radenko Milak. Edited by Max Dax together with Marc Wellmann for Haus am Lützowplatz (HaL), the monograph includes an extensive essay by Udo Kittelmann and will be published by Snoeck Verlag.

This exhibition is supported by Galeria La Balsa Arte, Bogotá / Medellín, Christine König Gallery, Vienna, Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest, and Priska Pasquer Gallery, Cologne.

Programme

March 6 2026, 7 pm
Udo Kittelmann im Gespräch mit Max Dax, moderiert von Marc Wellmann.
*The talk will be in German