They have a background in ex-Yugoslavia, and all have experience with war, flight and life between several cultures. At the same time, they are leading profiles on the contemporary art scene. Now they are presented together for the first time at the Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK).
By Miriam Katz
It happens at the exhibition 'Connections - Danish artists from the former Yugoslavia', which takes over Skulpturgaden at the national gallery on 17 September.
Behind the exhibition is curator and visual artist Tijana Mišković, who is a PhD scholar at the art museum until 2023. Her research project focuses on this particular group of artists, many of whom fled to Denmark as children from the war in ex-Yugoslavia with their families in the early 1990s. Since then, they have trained at Danish art academies and have left a significant mark on both Danish and international art life.
The exhibition stems from Tijana Mišković's research project, where she examines, among other things, what the experiences this group of artists carry with them mean for their art.
"I see many similarities, but also many differences, between them. And I am interested in highlighting these important artistic creations in a way that makes room for both the diversity and for the common cultural-historical heritage that has helped to shape them," she says when Biledkunstneren meets her at SMK in July , where the works for the exhibition are being unpacked and the installations are being prepared.
Personal, political, universal
Tijana Miskovic. Photo: Miriam Katz
Tijana Mišković was actually supposed to 'only' do research when she was employed at the museum in 2020 with her curatorial PhD project, financed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. But when she inquired about whether the museum could show one of the works she writes about in her thesis, Ismar Čirkinagić's 'The House in a Forest by the Sea', the museum seized the opportunity to realize a larger exhibition that sheds light on a group of important contemporary artists not previously presented together.
A total of seven artists contribute new and older works, several of which are in SMK's collection. Čirkinagić's monumental installation, which, among other things, consists of six-metre-high sails sewn together from clothes collected in 15 conflict-affected countries, has previously been exhibited at The Meštrović Pavilion in Zagreb and is now being shown here for the first time.
"Ismar Čirkinagić's entire artistic practice is an example of how some of these artists say something universally human about war and trauma, without necessarily working directly with their own personal experiences. His works speak very strongly emotionally to us viewers, regardless of whether we ourselves have experienced war and flight or not," she says. Some of the participating artists, for example Vladimir Tomić and Ana Pavlović, more directly use their own personal experiences as artistic material, among other things in the form of photos, video recordings and letters included in the works (see interviews with Tomić and Pavlović p. 10- 13, ed.)
Nermin Duraković, Our Border, 2021. Video still. © Nermin Duraković / VISDA
Others, for example Nermin Duraković, are primarily concerned with social political structures in society. In the video work 'Our border' he shows a green, lush mountain landscape, intersected by a bare, cleared forest area. The subject was recorded with a drone camera on the border between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which also forms the EU's external border. This is where many Middle Eastern refugees have been stranded in recent years trying to reach Western Europe. The title's statement about 'our border' thus points to an ambiguous personal, political and ethically charged middle position, which can be found in many of the other participating artists' practices, says Tijana Mišković.
"They all speak from a transcultural position, where they try to create new connections, for example between 'here' and 'there', 'then' and 'now'. Some try to heal and repair, others show conflict. In their art, the Yugoslav, and all that it implies in terms of historical, social and cultural heritage, is connected with the Danish culture where they grew up, were educated and have acquired a visual language.”
Zooming in on the Yugoslav
In recent years, there has been a focus on refugee policy, war and exile in many places in the art world with exhibitions of artists from conflict areas around the world. Here, however, Tijana Mišković wants to create an exhibition that is not only about migration, but also points to the specifically Yugoslav.
"Not to pay tribute to a national framework or encapsulate the artists from ex-Yugoslavia in a narrow national understanding, but to show that national identity is constantly evolving. And that many live between different national affiliations and have a lot in their baggage, which is also expressed in art," explains she, who herself came to Denmark as a refugee from the Balkans in the early 1990s and left Det Kgl. Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Fine Arts in 2008.
Like the artists in the exhibition, she is a child of a nation that no longer exists. Tito's socialist Yugoslavia disappeared with the war and was replaced by new nation states. And it is questions about the importance of the lost land that Tijana Mišković is particularly concerned with raising, both at the exhibition and at an art seminar she is organizing, which will take place on 5 November at SMK.
"I think it is important to keep an eye on both the specific, cultural-historical background that the artists bring, and the universal human experiences of war, migration, trauma and cultural translation that these works point to. Both tracks must be included if you want to deeply understand what is at stake in art.”
Arts institutions need minority experience
The double lens in which the experience from ex-Yugoslavia is included also plays an important role in her own research and curation work.
"It means something that I share the artists' background. I can understand the reservations and the skepticism one can have as an artist when someone wants to place one in the category of 'artist from the former Yugoslavia', and therefore we had many dialogues to ensure that everyone could see themselves in this link. It has been a rewarding process, also because it has meant that we had to be sharp in formulating our curatorial motivation, so that the artists could understand not only what we wanted, but also why we wanted to do it," she says of the exhibition, which is realized in collaboration with art mediator Hilde Østergaard.
Designer Lovorika Banović has created the design of the exhibition with inspiration from, among other things, a traditional Yugoslav stool and geometric patterns from the Yugoslav weaving tradition. And that art institutions use professionals with a different ethnic background than the majority Danish in all stages of the exhibition processes is both a natural and necessary development, believes Tijana Mišković.
"A lot of positive things are happening in the art world these years, but I think we can become even better at creating change from within the institutions by getting more diversity both among employees and management. Proper, careful dialogues with artists are necessary to create good exhibitions. And that requires both time and a special understanding and sensitivity, which I don't think you can necessarily train in at a university. Institutions gain extra resources when they have employees in-house who combine art expertise with, for example, a transcultural perspective. I think minority experience will be a valuable competence in the future.”
Top: Ana Pavlović, Paper Theater, 2019. Installation photo from Kunsthal Nord. © Ana Pavlović / VISDA. PHOTO Niels Fabæk
CONNECTIONS — DANISH ARTISTS FROM THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
Statens Museum for Art, 17 September – 19 February 2023.
Participating artists: Alen Aligrudić, Ismar Čirkinagić, Suada Demirović, Nermin Duraković, Amel Ibrahimović, Vladimir Tomić and Ana Pavlović.
Exhibition designer: Lovorika Banović.
Curators: Tijana Mišković and Hilde Østergaard.
You can read the whole thing here The visual artist #3 2022