Outer Self – Public Art Practices of Artists from Bosnia and Herzegovina – Gallery Easttopics – Budapest – Opening exhibition : November 13th 2020

Outer Self – Public Art Practices of Artists from Bosnia and Herzegovina

curated by Pierre Courtin

opening: 2020.11.13

on view until: 2020.12.09

Easttopics is proud to present Outer Self, a group exhibition focusing on the public art practices of young artists from Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the first lockdown that left inerasable marks in all of us earlier this year in Spring, we are now expecting a second period of isolation, that together with the cold Autumn weather, will substantially limit our freedom of movement once again. As a way to counter the past and upcoming physical distancing and retreat from public spaces, the exhibition Outer Self proposes to stroll around public art practices of young artists from Bosnia, not only as a poetic series of actions reflecting on the current pandemic situation, but also on the trauma of the Balkan War, when the simple fact of going outside, in the open space, was life threatening. This exhibition features four artists who (re)occupy and re-appropriate public spaces.

In her practice, Mila Panić (1991) usually explores phenomenology of place and the expanded notion of belonging including the concept of in-betweens. Her installation entitled Strawberry Field (2018) made from strawberries picked from a recently cleared minefield and her video Burning Field (2017) are two connected art works that both deal with issues of displacement, anxiety as well as collective and personal responsibility. Examining lineages, poetics, traces and transitions of the present as well as its political modalities, but also embracing and examining its post-ideological performativities, Bojan Stojčić (1988) often intervenes into a contextualized everyday, liberating the image of its graphic manifestations while complimenting its form and surrounding narratives. The series of photographs entitled No traces promises the path (2013-), the ongoing project Seeking for a person (2013-) and the iconic photography Viva la transition! (2015-2020), the young artist processes feelings of abandonment, loneliness and the loss of synchronicity with his environment. Dissecting political and social subjects through performative and visual media, Mak Hubjer (1993) presents two videos, Clear Conscience – MH FT DB (2016) and Clear Conscience – MH FT NSS (2018), both elaborating on the concepts of remembering and forgetting the traumas of the past through our relationship to monuments, inevitably linked with public spaces but also invisibility and neglect. Finally, in the frame of his work nourished by a humoristic view on social and political topics, the ongoing project of Damir Radović (1976) entitled Paradoxical Sleep and initiated in Sarajevo in 2007, shows the artist performing extreme sleeping sessions in outdoor, noisy, unprotected, bright and cold spaces, being exposed to all weather conditions and the curiosity of all passers-by.

The exhibition Outer Self, conceived as the first part of a long term series of interventions which will be continued in Paris and Sarajevo, is curated by Pierre Courtin, founder and director of Duplex100m2, an exhibition space based in Sarajevo until 2018.