the museum faces Kalemegdan from the last outcropping of Novi Beograd, such that, from its windows, one can see a room of garishly coloured paintings (from one eye) and the fortress, with an ensculptured stretch of park leading to the river (from the other). i still delight in the unlikely blend of old and new, settled and threatening to be overturned. the main square in town, with Knez Mihailo (universal meeting place: "kod konja [at the horse]," a brilliant commentary of elision if i ever saw one), in front of the National Theatre and Museum (not open), where all the punks skate and scrawl new obscenities on the base of the monument for each day of the week, where the Crveni Krst [Red Cross] had its blood-donation bus parked for weeks during September (but, now, who really has any to spare?). the National Library and St. Sava cathedral (that latter is a discussion for another day, though). the blackened stone and the neon, the tramvaj and the taxi, the river and the bridge—none of which is in any way unique. in fact, pairings of this sort form the common element which greets anyone who finds themselves in, well, not the New World. i would say, though, it is especially true of European cities: these, who most strikingly live their oldness instead of commemorating it and, in doing so, cannot help but make it as new as they are.
when it comes to modern art, i am skeptical and often justified in therebeing. when it comes to politically-motivated (either before, during, or after the linkage) art, the sense of wariness intensifies. at the same time, i am interested in art that is not Art, because of the light it sheds on the society in which it was created. of course, this is the case with all forms of art; like the good anti-postmodernist that i am, though, i believe there is a whole lot of stuff that transcends most of the (sniveling) discussion of context, that speaks for itself simply by virtue of being Art, of having inherent value. however, in my current situation, everything has reached a somewhat desperate level and i need all the contextual data i can collect in my overarching attempt to make some sense of this place and mentality. what to do when ordinary discussion (without inviting exile or assassination) fails? yes, indeed: you go to the museum.
amidst the performance pieces and variations on a "Step One: set up a camera in some Beograd square. Step Two: record every last freak who wishes to lick the camera lens" theme, i discovered some decent stuff, including:
a canvas with eight identical prints of the same redrawn image of what obviously hearkens to Uroš Predić's Kosovo Girl. that it is half-serious, not distorted or grotesque, lends gravity to the work.
yet it is an unmistakable caricature, a quick primary colour sketch of the original, whose gross overlay of hue and injected significance renders it barely palatable. that everyone even remotely familiar with the former Jugoslavia (when it was pre- or still-. or something. you know what? i think this whole confused mess of twilit earth has always been the Former and, moreover, always shall be. yes, indeed: that explains so very much, about physical borders and all the multiplicative others) would immediately realise the singularity of influence (and, at least somewhat, the implication of its invocation) and yet, looking at the new representation, cannot deny its (in content and in form) mass produceability bespeaks worlds about the generation of collective consciousness, in general, and mass hysteria, especially. smart. really smart and effective.a series of comics, drawn and storied by one Aleksandar Zograf (he's secretly Dutch), entitled A Day in Serbia and Life Under Sanctions. in these, he provides a scattering look at the events in the mid-1990s which makes no attempt to conceal or dilute the absurdity which ran rampant through the land(s). he says, sounding a fair bit like Joseph might:
"Serbs—of Orthodox Christian faith, lost in their historical frustrations.
Croats—of Catholic faith, desperately drowning in national romanticism.
Muslims—of same ethnic origin as Croats and Serbs, and with similar crazed fixations."
when i pilfer this synopsis as my new creed, it is with utmost respect.
a piece called Eye Stain Free (a print of which also formed the sign outside the women's restroom downstairs), which consisted of a uniformly black circle as big as my arms would reach in impersonating this form, girded with thin strips of wood, placed, minimalist and lovely, with various degrees of give in their circularity, in order to form an imprecise outer boundary.
his face lying diaphanously behind countless halved bars of translucent soap: Scented Portrait of Oscar Wilde.
the photographs which run the length of the main monument to the exhibit are quite telling, most depicting scenes in which art, having already lifted its hands in the air, clashed with the politics that was or was not looking at it from behind the barrel of a gun. it's amazing: i've lived in this city for two months and yet when i look at almost any of those photos, i know its exact location. granted, many (necessarily, intentionally) occurred in prominent places (although i cannot be counted upon to distinguish between their reasons for prominence: until this past weekend, i was convinced that the Federal Parliament was, in fact, the Main Post Office. we all have our little evaluative systems, i suppose). but there was one piece in the main gallery depicting a guy standing on a street corner, and i knew before reading the placard (which told me only that it was of someone somewhere in the whole of Zemun-town) where he did so and, moreover, that i run past there all the time.
the last one, i can scarcely relate (or even try)—and this inarticulability has to do only secondarily with discrepancies between modes of conveyance. Jozo Karamatić, apparently some sort of émigré and a National Guslar to boot, gives us his Death in Dallas. this is, i tell you no lies, a film of the usual suspects (in the form of Jackie-laden photographic stills), marching on their fade-out timer and superimposed upon by the main attraction: the gusla ballad recounting the death of JFK. all of the sensory data was, in timbre (musical and OTT literary) and harmonic structure, proceeding in its usual vector towards being interpreted without a hitch by my organs of cognition. that is, until the eyes (at times light is not the fastest) came eagerly bounding up with the subject matter tight in their clutches and dropped it at my feet. at this point, all of the evoked senses malfunctioned at once.
for my part, i am utterly thankful that the guards in the museum were lackadaisical when it came to enforcing that "no photography" rule; now i have a slough of pictures from the exhibit.
in addition to being Free Day, turns out it was also Lecture Day. so, of course, i went to hear some renowned scholars discuss the things i had just seen. the comprehension might have continued to hover around its 20% had i shared a language, but not the discipline (other strike against me, in the actual situation). when i went to the Pontanima concert the other week, i noted all sorts of signs for interesting talks on subjects "ranging from" physics to philosophy; it is one of the most difficult things about being here (and also one of the key features about Ann Arbor which i greatly miss): to have the access, to have the desire, but, simply put, to have not the means. the question becomes, then, what to do about this. at times it is better to remain in safety, where the words are known and the sentences short. but, sometimes, it's necessary to leap and pretend that you were swimming all along.
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