Exhibition Hidden Place / Gallery Art / Podgorica, Montenegro / June 2021
For the art lover, the gallery is a place where aesthetic needs are to be met, a place that provides the spiritual and emotional ambience of pleasure, and ultimately, an escape from reality as an indistinguishable amalgam of trivia and sensation. If the art lover then “encounters” a work of extraordinary structural beauty in the gallery, a fruit of the artist’s distinct manual skills, it is safe to say that the art lover had a first-class experience. At first glance, this frequently occurring, superficial, though not entirely insignificant approach to art and the expectations associated with it, is fully embodied by Bojan Radojčić’s exhibition “The Hidden Place”. Everything one would need for a dose of visual and viewing pleasure is there: a classic, masterful drawing of monumental dimensions, founded in realism, an appealing installation with plants and a golden cover, finely balanced size in relation to the space. However, the beautiful illusion slowly dissipates, and the visitor is quietly contaminated, confronted with a far deeper and more serious content, containing a sophisticated-subversive image of the morally stumbled modern world, which overwhelms the visitor. It does not do so rudely and shockingly, but subtly and poetically, drawing one into the critical discourse of the phenomenon of ubiquitous surveillance.
An exciting drawing characterised by symphonic splendour, featuring the scenic ambience of an impenetrable, mystical forest with a white drapery in the foreground, under which, as if under a cover, the outlines of the body can be intuited, emits a dreamy atmosphere of melancholy and mystery. Similarly to the Garden of Eden from More’s Amauret or Campanella’s City of the Sun, bearing in mind the stereotypes of Western civilization related to utopian escapism, at first glance it offers an idyllic scene of nature as a highly aestheticized, carefree and harmless place that engulfs us in deep intimacy. Given that artist is familiar with patterns from the history of art, drawing and painting tradition, as well as iconographic schemes of old masters, which he translates into the narrative and topical plane of his own work, the drawing acquires a timeless dimension. The complex relationship with realism, not in the sense of its anachronistic style, but as a representational strategy, which is in the service of anticipation of a certain narrative, rather than its articulation and illustration, renders the work current and engaged. Therefore, in dealing with the problem of surveillance and complete loss of privacy in a globalised society networked with hyper-information that “suffers” from virtual social-phagy, the artist introduces elements into the Arcadian scene that serve as metaphors, mimicking them in a way, and giving them natural vitality - elements of a public, mass-transmitted spectacle. Microphones, cameras and reflectors are featured in the drawing, as magnificent as trees, with a strange organic quality, harmonised with the vegetation to such a degree that the eye of the observer does not protest at first, because one does not feel the visual and semantic split in the play. Bearing in mind the process of the artist’s work, which includes many preparatory studies for the final piece, as well as downloading images, frames from digital archives and private photographs, fitting them without visible semantic and formal seams, and then accurately transferring the conceptualised composition onto book pages that are only merged into a whole in the gallery space, one forms an impression of the structural complexity of the creative process.
A video-sound installation, resembling a sort of a three-dimensional replica of the drawing, made of decorative plants, with the space in between covered with crumpled gold foil, microphones and monitors, all placed in a large box, is set up on the gallery floor. The cables protrude from the box and, just like vines they meander, thereby creating an impression of uncontrolled, unpredictable movement. The plants are not as wild as they would be in a forest, but are rather cultivated, nurtured to enrich the space, which is why they take on a partially artificial character. The foil cover does not convey the original meaning of gold, symbolising absolute perfection and reflecting heavenly light, nor does it point to its secondary interpretations of power and wealth; rather, in this work it turns into beautiful, cheap gilding, into pseudo, and refers to false, instant representativeness, devoid of any spiritual content. Unlike the drawing, which could pretend to be symbolically eternal, the installation sends a coded message that questions the global phenomenon of the loss of privacy in the reality of the here and now, given that events from the gallery itself are streamed through screens and microphones. The discreetly imposed and unavoidable participation in the work creates both a sense of discomfort and excitement in the observer due to the unexpected identification of oneself in the monitor, tucked among the plants, broadcasting a recording from the gallery’s video surveillance in real time. Cameras record every movement, every sound, and potentially store them permanently in digital archives. Privacy based on the autonomy of our personality, i.e. the belief that we are the owners of our lives and that no one else can decide on our behalf when and how our privacy will become public, disperses as an illusion of an ideal image, which, in the mind of the observer, slowly begins to decompose. The panopticon, as a powerful metaphor of the system of supervision and control, is built into the consciousness of the individual and constantly modifies one’s behaviour. With the exhibition “The Hidden Place”, through cooperation between traditional and new media, the artist poses questions about the structure of the global society of morally deviant principles, which is based on the invisible and ubiquitous supervision and control of individuals by centres of power, loss of privacy and personal sovereignty. He problematizes and questions the existence of an escapist, hidden place where man is free. The illusion of freedom, similarly to a beautiful, seductive but porous and fragile image, becomes apparent.
Ljiljana Karadzic art historian
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Q & A sa Bojanom Radojčićem
Intervju iz kataloga za izložbu Genetički inženjering / Galerija Savremene umetnosti / Subotica, RS / decembar 2015
Nela Tonković: Umetnici često svojim radom prvi progovaraju o traumatičnim događajima ili periodima u životu jednog društva. Zašto je važno da umetnost ne ostane nema pred negativnim pojavama društvene realnosti (a mogla bi da se zaštiti nizom dobrih izgovora za svoje nedelanje)?
Bojan Radojčić: Svakako da je važno ne ostati nem. Umetnost treba i mora da kopa i iskopava traumatične, osetljive teme i suprotstavi posmatrača/publiku sa realnošću kroz imaginarni svet. Umetnost treba da komunicira sa društvom, da ga ispituje i preispituje, opominje, da dijagnostikuje... Ne vidim ni jedan opravdani izgovor da umetnost ne reaguje na događaje, politiku i život koji je okružuje, iako sistem i dominantne elite to ne vide tako. Naprotiv, danas živimo u društvu koje priča o kreativnoj industriji, a ne o kulturi i umetnosti, gde se od umetnika očekuje da bude kreativan, ali ne i kritičan ili, pak, kritičan u bezbednim granicama, kako bi se zadovoljila forma nezavisne umetnosti. To nije isključivo problem našeg društva. Naprotiv, i nažalost, to je globalni položaj umetnosti danas. Mejnstrim kultura je gurnuta u sferu zabave i spektakla, a nezavisna scena se pokušava iskoristiti kao kamuflaža nove kulturne politike koje su zasnovane na smanjivanju fondova za umetnost i njenom prepuštanju tržištu. Kritička umetnost tako postaje prećutno cenzurisana ili, što je još gore, autocenzurisana.
Nela Tonković: Vaš rad Genetički inženjering, osim morfološke i retinalno opažajne, nema mnogo sličnosti sa Vašim prethodnim radovima, u njega prodire mnogo više narativa iz doživljene stvarnosti, njega kao da je iscrtavala proživljena/preživljena „velika“ istorija. Šta Vas je podstaklo na komentarisanje konkretnih iskrivljenja sistema u ovoj i državama oko nje?
Bojan Radojčić: Ne mislim da je rad Genetički inženjering umnogome drugačiji od mojih dosadašnjih radova. Iako se oslanja na istoriju i konkretne događaje, pre svega istražuje polje skrivenog nasilja koje je kao tema, tj. podtema prisutno i u mojim prethodnim radovima. Ideja za ovaj rad je nastala još pre nekoliko godina, ali je bilo potrebno da prođe mnogo vremena kako bi se uobličila baš u ovakvu formu u kojoj je danas predstavljena na ovoj izložbi. Genetički inženjering se bavi simboličkim nasiljem dominirajuće elite u okviru jednog društva i predstavlja fikciju inspirisanu pratećim, nevidljivim nasiljem ideoloskih matrica koje su inicirale istorijski trenutak nastajanja post-jugoslovenskog društva i dugoročno usporile njegov razvoj. Nije mi bilo zanimljivo da se bavim raspadom Jugoslavije iz vizure oružanog sukoba i njegovih primarnih žrtava, već da pokušam da dekonstruišem jednu ideologiju, proničući u tajne mehanizme njenog simboličkog nasilja nad generacijama stasalim pod njenim uticajem. Pošto diskursi dominantnih elita u novonastalim post-jugoslovenskim državama obiluju distinkcijama kao što su NAŠE žrtve i NJIHOVE žrtve, gde se „naše“ veličaju i u nedogled prebrojavaju u odnosu na „njihove“, odlučio sam da se kao „neidentifikovana žrtva“ pozabavim tom temom i tako „samoidentifikujem“, ispitujući na koji način je post-jugoslovenska nacionalistička laboratorija u kojoj su planirani zločini nad „njima“ zapravo vrlo organizovano i nepogrešivo istovremeno kreirala i simbolički (nevidljivi) zločin nad „svojom“ etničkom grupom. Taj sekundarni nivo zločina definišem kao sekundarni samo zato što se ne vidi na prvi pogled, jer ne podrazumeva krv, grobnice i leševe. Naime, pokušao sam jednom fiktivnom predstavom da genetički inženjering, kao jedan naučni pojam, apliciram na aktivnosti određenih elita koje su vrlo perfidno i na nevidljiv način brutalno vršile promenu državne ideologije menjajući tako genetski kod građana bivše Jugoslavije, u ovom slučaju srpske nacionalnosti.
Nela Tonković: Kažete da prolazite put od „neidentifikovane žrtve“ do „samoidentifikacije“. Kada se jednom „samoidentifikujete“, kuda i kako dalje?
Bojan Radojčić: Za početak mislim da je potrebno identifikovati se. Pronaći uzrok današnje pozicije i zapitati se da li su uništavane vrednosti zauvek uništene ili nekakva alternativa ipak postoji.
Davor Marko: Da li za vas post-jugoslovenski period ili post-socijalizam predstavljaju zasebnu, neki je nazivaju i tranzicijskom, fazu razvoja naših društava od socijalizma ka liberalnoj demokratiji, ili je u pitanju samo kontinuirani proces koji je nemoguće posmatrati izolovano od onoga što je tome prethodilo (bilo da je u pitanju socijalizam, odnosno komunizam)?
Bojan Radojčić: To jesu dve faze u razvoju našeg društva, podjednako kao što su pred-jugoslovenska i jugoslovenska, ideološki i vrednosno dva odvojena razdoblja naše istorije. Pre bi se moglo reći da su pred-jugoslovenski, odnosno predratni, i post-jugoslovenski periodi jedan kontinuirani proces jednog vrednosnog sistema sa istim dodirnim tačkama. Jugoslovenski period nije doživeo prirodnu i logičnu evoluciju već je njegov razvoj presečen, zaustavljen i aktivno je rađeno na kompletnoj promeni toka novonastalih država. Današnja tranziciona faza, kako se naziva, je ništa drugo do jedna bezidejna pljačkaška faza u kojoj se jasno razotkriva geneza genetičkog inženjeringa, iz koje se jasno vidi da ni njeni glavni kreatori ne veruju u njene vrednosti i ideale.
Davor Marko: Kad govorimo o simboličkom nasilju kojim se vi bavite, ono za cilj ima kreiranje diskursa podela (mi/oni, naši/njihovi) i isključivanja (žrtve drugih). Da li po Vama postoje razlike, i na koji se način one simbolički interpretiraju, između narativa pobednika (recimo, to je narativ današnje države u Hrvatskoj) i narativa gubitnika (što dominira u Srbiji, pa se mitovi i dalje reprodukuju iz daleke istorije)?
Bojan Radojčić: Upravo tako, simboličko nasilje kreira protivnika na drugoj strani, stvarajući te drugačijim u odnosu na njega, iako bitne razlike ni nema. Upravo iz tog razloga mislim da je daleko važnije govoriti o takvom obliku naslilja. Mene je zanimalo na koji način i zbog čega je došlo do promena ideoloških vrednosti i šta nas je kao društvo dovelo ovde gde smo. Kako i na koji način smo došli u poziciju da nam se deca rađaju sa tri prsta umesto sa pet? Kako je postalo normalno da se tinejdžeri krste dok prolaze pored hrama Svetog Save? Kako je postalo normalno kupiti diplomu? Kako je postalo normalno revidirati istoriju? Kako je postalo normalno klasno raslojavanje društva? I kako je, pre svega, postalo normalno nemati empatije i solidarnosti?
Ista ova pitanja sebi mogu postaviti i građani Hrvatske i to upravo i jeste paradoks pobednika i gubitnika koji se danas nalaze na istim pozicijama i sa istim dilemama. Mislim da bi bilo veoma zanimljivo napraviti saradnju sa umetnicima iz ostalih bivših republika i analizirati na koji način je sproveden genetički inženjering nad generacijama jugoslovena u tim republikama.
Davor Marko: Koristite se metodom „genetičkog inženjeringa“ koju određuje racionalnost, dok simboličko nasilje o kojem govorite kao o rezultatu ovako smišljene re-ideologizacije od strane elita, zapravo zavise od afektivnosti i emocionalnosti onih prema kojima se simboličko nasilje vrši. Jedna od afektivnih metoda kojima se manipuliše u javnom diskursu je i strah, pa me zanima koja je uloga straha u ovom procesu i na koji ga način elite koriste u re-ideologizaciji javnog diskursa? Kakav je strah u pitanju, ili kakvi strahovi?
Bojan Radojčić: Upravo zbog svoje racionalnosti i promišljenosti koje karakterišu genetičare srpskog društva odlučio sam se za jedan ovakav precizan i promišljen termin za naziv izložbe.
Simboličkim nasiljem, na kojem insistiram, pojedinac je postavljen u položaj da je takav kakav jeste ne samo zato što to voli, već zato što oseća strah da bude drugačiji. Direktno nasilje ti pravi konkretan strah i ti znaš kako da se boriš protiv njega, dok u simboličkom nasilju osećaš neartikulisani strah, ne znaš šta ćeš s njim, niti ga vidiš niti ga ne vidiš. Znaš da te nešto žulja, ali nemaš pojma kako, gde… Kao kad imaš neki simptom, a ne znaš uopšte kod kog lekara da ideš. To je drugačije nego kad si bolestan i tačno znaš koju bolest imaš.
Simboličko nasilje izaziva efekat kuvane žabe, gde jednog dana samo konstatuješ da si skuvan. I tako skuvan vršiš direktno, vidljivo nasilje nad slabijim od sebe. Postaješ proizvod uspešno realizovanog eksperimenta, i kao takvog lako te je držati pod kontrolom.
Ljudi se u današnjem društvu, ovakvom kakvo jeste, često trgnu i shvate kako je nešto nenormalno oko njih, ali veoma brzo ponovo padnu i potonu u kolotečinu, jer nemaju dovoljno kapaciteta za neku artikulisanu borbu, jer im nedostaju oduzeta dva prsta.
Maja Rakočević-Cvijanov: Koji je Vaš odgovor na ponuđeno pitanje: „Da li su uništene sve vrednosti ili alternativa postoji?“
Bojan Radojčić: Svedoci smo da su vrednosti sistematski menjane tokom procesa promene ideologije započete jos ranih ’80-ih. Nacionalističku matricu iz Miloševićevog perioda preuzele su i opozicione stranke u narednim režimima, igrajući se sa simbolima ’90-ih, a dolaskom na vlast trenutne političke elite čini mi se da se taj krug zatvorio. Čini mi se da je višedecenijski eksperiment genetički inženjering uspeo. Mutirani gen je tu. Prisutan i slobodan.
Retradicionalizacija i klerikalizacija srpskog društva, donoseći svoje vrednosti, vidljiva je u svakom njenom segmentu. Da li alternativa postoji? Zasigurno da postoji, a njen odgovor se nalazi u pronalaženju nedostajuća dva prsta.
Maja Rakočević-Cvijanov: Zašto prsti kao simbol genetičkog eksperimenta?
Bojan Radojčić: Upravo zato što je to simbol koji je okupio skoro sve dominatne političke i intelektualne elite koje su donosile nove vrednosti. U javni diskurs ulazi početkom ’90-ih sa Vukom Draškovićem, Miloševićevim antipodom, koji vrlo aktivno iz pozicije opozicionara, zajedno sa režimom i intelektualnom elitom tog doba, vrši genetički inženjering. Taj simbol kasnije, vrlo svesno, preuzimaju i koriste novi post-petooktobarski lideri, od Koštunice preko Tadića, pa sve do javnih ličnosti. Na ovoj izložbi, simbol tri prsta, sa svom simbolikom koju nosi uz sebe, suprotstavljen je pionirskim maramama kao obeležju ideje klasne revolucije, društvene mobilnosti i nad-nacionalnosti.
Maja Rakočević-Cvijanov: Da li van konteksta u kome je rad koncipiran postoji i nešto lično što Vam stvara naročito interesovanje prema noževima, hirurgiji, disekciji? Ako postoji, zanima me priča.
Bojan Radojčić: Apsolutno ne.
Nela Tonković, istoričarka umetnosti,
mr Davor Marko, istraživač i analitičar medija,
mr Maja Rakočević-Cvijanov, vizuelna umetnica-vajarka
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Exhibition The Boy Who Burned With Desire / Galerie Pi, Copenhagen, DK / August 2014
Have
you ever seen a human being burning? Has your attention ever been caught by the
image of a living body engulfed in flames? If your answer is still negative, it
may be the case that you have asked yourself at least once in your lifetime:
What it feels like for a man to burn? Why do such things happen at all? Also,
how come that they sometimes occur by one’s own will – when I make a decision
(a terminal one, indeed) to stand up in public, among the crowd, to perform this
act of violence against myself and set up my body alight? How is this possible?
Another
question complements the trouble at hand: What it feels like for a burning man
to be observed by the other? While suffering makes an inevitable part in the
process that brings the subject to almost certain death, another dimension
evolves all the way through: for a man
who burns in front of the others turns himself not only into a body that
suffers; rather, he becomes the object of looking that is now turned into an
image – he makes a ‘spectacle of himself’, the visual self-representation of a
suffering human body, burning. Thus, it is not fire that makes our look upon a
burning man so different from any other image we have seen before: it is
precisely his (or her) suffering turned into images that brings into question
the very nature of humankind, of what makes one being so ‘human’ yet so
disparate from anyone else of the sort.
In
the overall dramaturgy of The Trilogy
about the Boy Who… (2012), and in one of its segments in particular – “The
Boy Who Burned With Desire” (now on view at the Galerie Pi) - Bojan Radojcic puts forward the relationship
between images and suffering as a way of addressing the tension between the
individual and the world through a simple, yet painful and ethically puzzling
gesture. For a ‘boy’ (or a ‘girl’) who seeks to improve the balance of power in
society, burning with desire for change is but a tool to literally ‘put to
light’ what is otherwise hidden, neglected or underexposed: to spark a bit of
empathy among the spectators lulled by inertia, so their sense of shame (or
even guilt) could be finally awaken. As Kathy Change wrote in her final statement:
I want to protest the present government and
economic system and the cynicism and passivity of the people in general. I want
to protest this entirely shameful state of affairs as emphatically as possible.
But primarily, I want to get publicity in order to draw attention to my
proposal for immediate social transformation. To do this I plan to end my own
life. The attention of the media is only caught by acts of violence. My moral
principles prevent me from doing harm to anyone else or their property, so I
must perform this act of violence against myself ...[1]
---Marko Stamenkovic
[1] Kathy
Change was the performance artist and activist who burned herself to death in
1996 in Philadelphia, USA, in front of a sculpture symbolizing peace at the
campus of the University of Pennsylvania. See: Joseph Shahadi, “Burn: The
Radical Disappearance of Kathy Change”, TDR:
The Drama Review 55:2 (Summer 2011): 52-72.
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Exhibition THE TRILOGY ABOUT THE BOY WHO… / The Cultural Centre of Belgrade, SRB / January 2013
The story about art is a continuous account about sacrifices made, self-sacrifices and giving up for certain ideas, for beauty and for the desire to say something and, in the end, to change something. Ever since ancient times philosophers and writers have been suggesting that there is no beauty without suffering and no delight without much work. The duality of the world we live in was recognized early and entire philosophical and artistic systems and concepts have been built on its principles.
A concept like this is presented to Belgrade audience by Bojan Radojčić. Three large drawings, or better to say installations composed of a great number of drawings in A4 format made in charcoal, form three monumental pictures titled The Trilogy about the Boy Who… Each installation, i.e. drawing, has its title and each, as the author himself states, in its own way explores the theme of self-sacrificing from different perspectives and views, in order to fulfill certain aims. Although each of the three cases has different motives and aims, they are connected by one fact: that all the three boys develop major themes by sacrificing.
Many of myths, legends and religions are based on a conscious act of self-sacrificing of an individual or a group of people for a sublime idea or principle. This act has become a commonplace and a must do in the concept of creating of heroes and great epic poems. The story goes that two thousand years ago an ordinary carpenter decided to sacrifice himself in order to take all the sins of the world on him and save humanity. Today, there are over a billion of people on earth who believe in this story and celebrate the man who by sacrificing himself became the most famous person ever, although there is no historical evidence that he existed at all.
By raising universal questions, Bojan Radojčić is trying to say something about the structure of the modern world, about moral principles of the new age and to give an ideological context for overcoming such situation.
“The Boy Who Got Drown in His Tears” is a drawing about self-sacrificing where an individual sacrifices himself consciously in order to protect his immediate environment. This drawing is inspired by a short story from Mark Ravenhill's play Faust Is Dead in which a boy, disappointed by the world he lives in decides to ‘”cry inwardly” so that his mother would not notice his sorrows and worries.
In the second drawing in this trilogy “The Boy Who Exploded with Happiness” the artist explores the consequences of isolation and ignoring of social norms and injustices. The result of this all is that an individual starts living in his own hermetic world, fostering his own personal happiness and, so self-content, he unconsciously sacrifices by exploding with too much happiness.
The last drawing is titled “The Boy Who Burned with Desire” and is about a demonstrative act where an individual decides to perform a radical act of self-sacrifice wishing to indicate and draw attention to certain things effectively and brutally. In the times when it is difficult to be noticed and even more difficult to be listened to, what is often necessary is a shocking action that can cause a sensation and at least for a moment attract the attention of the society and media.
A Trilogy about a Boy by Bojan Radojčić can also be observed as a paradigm of the situation that Serbian art scene has been faced with for a good twenty years. It seems that self-sacrifice, persistency, self-satisfaction and stubbornness of some artists characterize the entire scene. Each of the stated features is characteristic for at least some of the people who have chosen art as their life’s work. Nevertheless, in spite of all the expectations and predictions, in spite of complete indifference of political structures and society, art survives. The price we pay is high, but it appears that we don’t care.
We can’t help noticing the devastating influence of the nineties on all the stated above. Whether we want to admit it or not, they are very present in our memories, our culture and everyday life as a specific form of (non)cultural inheritance that is resounding and warning. The years of wars, sanctions, state terrorism and crime left people with the feeling of fear and distrust additionally intensified by internal and external isolation. Faced with such para-reality, individuals started to withdraw into themselves, into their small autistic worlds where isolation and survival became the only aim and strategy.
In the parallel world where our artistic scene dwells, two possible ways have been defined. The first is the way of escapism, an introvert shutting yourself within four walls of your studio, into the small world of your own room (vita contemplativa), while the second way is taking an active part in changes and criticizing the disastrous model which is still in effect (vita activa).
Usually all starts with a desire and if we work hard, we get a chance to experience happiness, which often ends up in tears. This universal pattern is but a philosophical way of getting to know one’s own personality, a path that each of us takes at some point in our lives. Along this way we discover and learn about the world we live in, we sacrifice for ideals and beliefs that change us, but also the entire society. Negating its significance and influence is equally paradoxical and wrong as shattering boyish dreams of a noble fighter, hero, righteous knight who fights against evil. A romantic image of superheroes that has been created through novels, comic books and films is another confirmation of fragility of the society and the value system we have created. It makes us face the uneasiness, anxiety about each moment spent in the illusion that we are certain and that we know what is going on around us.
Saša Janjić
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MANGELOS AWARD - Young Visual Artist Award / Gallery Remont, Belgrade, SRB / Jun 2012
By deconstructing the media of the book which is a temporally-linear narrative into a concept of a visual narrative, Bojan Radojčić creates a kind of a metaphorical microscopic view in order to bring small "things" out of their anonymity. By reading the last page of the story ("The Boy Who Drowned in His Tears"), it becomes obvious that even in the discourse of the Small, compared to its size and importance, there is certainly an intensive comprehension of the world, perception and reaction to the microcosm that surrounds it. It may be concluded that the tragic is not in ascertaining those small existences but in the lack of their recording.
Jelena Veljković
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Newspaper INFORMATION, Denmark / April 2012
The Closed Country of Childhood
Bojan Radojcic draws and paints on a grid of loose book pages. The motifs consist of children exploring. And the heavy, heavy poetry might not be cheeky and playful as we are used to in Denmark but is much more serious and square. It is the children vs. the undefined culture that the books represent, it is the children’s curiosity vs. prescribed standards and regulations that weigh them down in boxes, blow them away never to be reassembled again. Or it is the children that close the book and move on while the adults are crying in fear of new perspectives and ways of living.
Battle between memories
There is congeniality between the massive culture that the books represent and the way in which the landscapes are pushing the children to the periphery of the very large works. And when the children simultaneously are depicted in black and white, with clothing and hair styles from another time, it is natural to incorporate the struggle between collective consciousness and individual memories. Who created us, could be the issue, Radojcic’s works ask us - ourselves, each other or the surroundings?
But the heavy poetry is also about memories, about how seemingly disparate objects like a meat grinder or a radio may end up as symbols of a childhood when the adult thinks back. Childhood as a closed country, as a war zone, we never get to either revisit or understand.
Michael Jeppesen
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Exhibition FRIENDSHIP / Gallery SC, Zagreb, CRO / March 2012
Antoine Doinel is running towards the ocean. Once he finally reaches the waves, he turns back after the first few steps and directs his gaze back towards the land. The camera advances on him, the last shot staying frozen on the expression on his face. Whether his expression conveys defiance, acceptance or sadness it's impossible to deduce, but the final moments of the film 400 Blows undoubtedly remain etched in the memory of its viewers. Truffaut's character, following his escape from a reform school, finds himself on the crossroads between childhood and adulthood - one world to which he cannot belong to and the other to which he doesn't want to belong to. The children depicted in Bojan Radojčić's work still haven't made this transition towards the imminent future, but by not allowing the viewer to take part in their world they remind him of what he has lost in the process of growing up. Truffaut's final shot in such a way finds its counterpart in the art of Bojan Radojčić. The nostalgia for what has disappeared as well as the melancholia caused by the rising awareness of the loneliness inherent to every individual permeates the work of these two artists.
Bojan Radojčić reaches for childhood games and the friendships between children to convey a reflection on the place of the individual in society, the relationships with others, the process of growing up and the transience of memory. The Friendship cycle shows instances of children playing, frozen as in old photographs. The children’s clothes remind us of times past. Their game is set in vague landscapes that could be located anywhere and nowhere. The paintings evoke the universal experience of childhood and at the same time awaken the personal memories of onlookers. However, these depictions are ambiguous. We cannot grasp them fully. Not only in their pale visuals but also in the absence of action that permeates these images. The narrative is reduced to the depiction of its characters, and thus prevents us from understanding the scene fully. The only thing we can do is take part in the atmosphere that is created, contemplate childhood and feel the melancholy of solitary meditation of a period of life to which we cannot belong anymore.
The feeling of insecurity is amplified by the barren landscapes which take up most of the paintings, as well as the claustrophobic interiors. The landscape pushes the action into the corners, the children are displaced into the periphery. We can only see fragments of children's bodies. The only accents of color are several objects which seem incongruous with the rest of the narrative. The children themselves are concentrated on their activities, their gaze is diverted from the viewer. Even when their eyes are directed towards us they remain blurry and undefined. We cannot form an opinion as to their feelings, their experience of the world surrounding them. The communication between the world inside the painting and the one outside of it is rejected and made impossible. The viewers can look onto these intimate moments but cannot enter them. They cannot take part in them. The world of these children remains closed off to all outside of it. There is always an invisible barrier that simply cannot be crossed.
In his works Radojčić substitutes the canvas with pages extracted from books. By mixing the traditional role of books and the canvas he transforms both. The pages lead us to read the paintings as if they were stories. They introduce a narrative aspect which might have slipped by otherwise. At the same the painted pages lead us to experience the books with our eyes. Every page is a unit that can be seen and understood only in relation to the surrounding pages. Even more, they remind us of diaries and photographs, which both serve as methods of recording the things we find important, but which keep slipping away. They are the methods with which we attempt to put down the traces of the person we were at one point in time and consequently the person we will never be again. The subdued colors, the composition that doesn't allow us to view images in their entirety question the persistence of memory. As photographs, paintings fade. The fragility of memory is inherent in the pages which make up these images. These paintings, patched together from individual pages, as memory is composed of individual moments can always be jumbled or dispersed, and what was key can disappear.
Childhood is predestined to end. It keeps slipping through our fingers. Once it is over one cannot communicate with it directly. The serene nature of childhood games cannot be recreated or brought back to life once we're adults. Once we grow up the line that connected us to our youth is broken. The clarity of real events is lost in nostalgic remembrance. In this way nostalgia and forgetfulness are intertwined in our vision of childhood. And we remain like Antoine Doinel, lost in the vastness of human experience.
Dora Sapunar
Art Historian
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Exhibition When I Grow Up, I’ll Get My Pair of Antlers / Gallery SKC , Belgrade, SRB / February 2011
When I grow up, I'll get my pair of antlers is the cycle of large-format works, realized in crayon and acrylic color, and on sheets of the re-found printed publications that are already distinctively marked by the passage of time.
The drawings are covering parts of music notes, texts and photo reproductions without any particular relationship with their contents, displaying the children figures frontally, in the portray-like pose, making them stare at the spectator. The children have got antlers whose symbolism has been traditionally linked to power and domination as well as growing and degradation. The work deals with a painstaking growing-up of children, i.e. their transition from the state of a child to the state of a grown-up, as well as with how difficult for one it can be to set oneself free from the old habits and plunge into the new chapter of life when one does not choose his own destiny of unavoidable growing-up. All that mystery of growing-up as an irreversible passage from one life stage into another – the passage that is not just a sheer transition to the world of grown-ups but an apparent corporal transformation, and the change in the manner of self-perception – is emphasized here through the application of a pair of antlers. Namely, when one becomes aware that a life stage is about to finish very soon and very much inevitably, especially in a society which does not regulate it unambiguously by initiation rites, one feels un urge to contemplate and in a satisfactory manner present the next life stage to oneself.
Stevan Vuković
Art Theorist and Curator
