BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA PAVILION

Curator: Ms. Dunja Blaževic

Assistant curators: Ms. Maja Bobar and Ms. Sara Vujkovic

Artsts: Damir Nikšic, Maja Bajevic, Danica Dakic and Maja Bajevic, Šelja Kameric, Kurt & Plasto, Gordana Galic Andelic, Dalibor Nikolic, Veso Sovij, Radenko Milak, Nenad Maleševic, Milan Miljanovic and Vlado Azinovic.

NEIGHBOURS

The concept of representative exhibition that has the ambition to present contemporary art of a country, a state, depend on the one or of those, who conceive the exhibition, i.e., its curator(s ). It depends on their understanding of art; their view of art, their understanding of not only the local scene, but also broader developments and interactions, as well as it takes account of the context in which the exhibition is done.

Accepting to appear alongside other colleagues from the region within the cliché known as “Eastern neighbours”, we took for out point of departure the fact that we are making for the first time a joint exhibition – backed by the National Gallery of BiH from Sarajevo and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Republika Srpska from Banja Luka. The exhibition that represents the current state of art on this country, deeply divided along ethnic, administrative and political lines; the country that, ten years after a devastating war, does not have a vision of where to go next, nor a program of reconstruction and development; the country in “transition”, which mean, in this part of the wor l d, the destruction of the old system without the contours of the new in the horizon. In such an economic, social and cultural vacuum and absence of policies, cultural in the first place, as well as in the absence of a system of art, the fundamenta l principle of both the institution of culture, as well as of artists, is to be resourceful and to make it do. Nevertheless, against all odd, and despite all difficulties, there are responsible individuals in the institutions and organisations, as well as at all the level of authority, who do not give up – this exhibition being the best evidence of it. On the other hand, in such “unfriendly” condition certain tendencies in art indicate a surprising vitality.

This vital force of nowadays art represents the artists who find their basic source of inspiration / motivation is their social, cultural and political surroundings. Kendeel Geers has defined such art of the life's context as "Realism of Lived Experience". The deciding motive for such "artistic comportment" is certainly the need to position oneself in relation to the life's turbulences and the experience of the dominating reality but also the works which reflect on general historical and civilization context; from critical questioning the existing systems and the hierarchy of values; researching the language - culture - identity codes as links or obstacles to understanding among people, to relation towards the other and with the other. There are artists who use, as their reference material, various representations of the past in order to demystify it, reinterpret, it or reaffirm it. Their works often represent the critique of an imposed selective perception and interpretation of the past, upon which today's weltanschauung is being shaped.

So, the choice of this curatorial team is the art that poses questions, that deals with social traumas, that demystifies traditional notions of art as well as collective ideological patterns and truths, but also reflects position and problems of people from this part of the world towards still existing “West”.

Dunja Blazevic - director Center of Contemporary Art Sarajevo