Lana Čmajčanin, Chto Delat?, Igor Grubić, Adela Jušić, Nikolay Oleynikov, Shadow Museum/Jaroslav Supek, Alma Suljević
Curator: Vladan Jeremić
The exhibition I Will Never Talk about the War Again will be presented for the first time in Slovenia as a part of the programme created by KIBLA for the manifestation Maribor 2012: European Capital of Culture. The exhibition has been produced by KIBLA and Biro Beograd, with the support of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia, Maribor 2012 - European Capital of Culture and the Municipality of Maribor.
The exhibition I Will Never Talk about the War Again presents the works of artists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia and Russia focused on critical social analysis and testimonies of violence and trauma connected with recent wars in the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
Under a heavy burden of wars, ethnic nationalisms and socioeconomic stratification processes, generated by neoliberal capitalism’s ideology, almost all states formed after the destruction of Yugoslavia suffer from neocolonial dependency imposed by global capital and permanent crisis at the European economic periphery. In such a constantly antagonistic social and political context there are certain requested positions in which testimonies of war trauma are represented, manifested and interpreted. That is why many representations in the field of cultural production and contemporary art don’t succeed to escape from stereotypes.
The exhibition I Will Never Talk about the War Again deals with the question can contemporary artistic practice find a language with which it would be possible to speak politically about individual and collective war and post-war experiences, without slipping into exoticization? Is it possible to find an adequate artistic formula, and is it always necessary to create empathy in the process of understanding? Silence and amnesia are the most common reactions to trauma; does art in this sense actually also remain silent by using only the symbolic language of images and sounds, staying in the field of mediation and symbolism?
The title of the exhibition is borrowed from the video performance I Will Never Talk about the War Again, by two artists from Sarajevo, Adela Jušić and Lana Čmajčanin. For their recent sound installation piece Bedtime Stories they collected stories about life during the 1395-days’ siege of Sarajevo, when people sought shelter from grenades in the small basement quarters of the city’s buildings.
The exhibition can be seen till 30.8. between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m.
During the last decade, several attempts to organize Gay Parades in Belgrade and Zagreb failed, while those „successful ones“ have been held under heavy police protection. In Belgrade in 2001, groups of fascists, clerical nationalists, and football hooligans attacked the parade and a large number of people were injured. In his two-channel video installation East Side Story Igor Grubić, an artist from Zagreb tackles the question of the rights of sexual minorities in societies that show a violent reaction to any diversity.
Vladan Jeremić (b. 1975, Belgrade) is a curator and artist who lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia. In his curatorial and artistic practice he researches the intersection between contemporary art and political activism. He works together with Rena Rädle as an artist duo. They founded Biro Beograd, an association that provides a platform for critical practice that goes beyond conventional forms of contemporary art, cultural and social research, or political activism.