Tout ce que j'ai je le porte avec moi, Gare de Lyon, Paris, 13th of June 2012, photo Boris Greiner

Tout ce que j'ai je le porte avec moi, Gare de Lyon, Paris, 13th of June 2012, photo Bozena Koncic Badurina

Tout ce que j'ai je le porte avec moi, Arc de Triomphe, Paris, 14th of June 2012

Tout ce que j'ai je le porte avec moi, Arc de Triomphe, Paris, 14th of June 2012

Tout ce que j'ai je le porte avec moi, Arc de Triomphe, Paris, 14th of June 2012

Tous ce que j’ai je le porte avec moi (All that’s mine I carry with me) was realized during Simplon Express/The Return, a project organized by Ida Biard’s Gallery of Tenants.

“Mobile, ephemeral exhibition Simplon Express was realized in June 1989 on a train traveling from Paris to Zagreb. 23 years later we are revisiting the same itinerary with new passengers but in opposite direction, from Zagreb to Paris: the Return” (quotation from the text: Simplon Express/The Return)

My participation in the project consisted in a performative journey-voyage dressed as a Parisian, carying a custom made suitcase. During the trip I read texts in Italian and French related to my childhood and experience of Europe.

Once in Paris at Gare de Lyon, I opened the suitcase and revealed its content to the public. The suitcase contained a custom made foldable chair, table, old gramophone with the record Sous le ciel de Paris, bottle of wine and a glass.

I drank a glass of wine while listening to the melody from the old gramophone.

The act was repeated next day in front of the Arc de Triomphe.

Sound: Jacques Helian Orchestra, original record, 1951
Sous le ciel de Paris

Contemporary Art @ Boğaziçi – Interview Project, 2011

Tomislav Brajnović lives and creates in Croatia; he has also done some works in London during his MA degree studies. He defines his work as: “Recognition and reaction to the context, location of the neuralgic points, the use of the local visual, symbolic and other ‘language’, exploration of the art scene and it’s critical frame are the main determinants of my artistic activity. In the same time it’s a search for a human dimension and ‘spiritual gravity’, natural speed of life and balance between the human, the nature and God.”

His works include slide-projections, video-projections, installations, etc.

You should check his website to see his amazing works: http://brajnovic.com/

Z.G.D: First of all, I want to ask about your family. Since they were all artists, how did they affect you? Was that situation a pressure on you? Did you feel like you “must” be an artist just like them?

T.B: I was born in a family where my father, mother, grandfather and his brother were artists. In my mother’s family, it was a tradition but my father made a great effort in order to leave a small, rural environment in Istria and become an artist.
In the late sixties and early seventies we moved to Italy and later France searching for a better living. It was a tough task to survive as artists having three children at that time (two sisters, me and later a brother that was born in 1972).
Although we were often on the edge of survival, without money, all of us (2 brothers and 2 sisters) became artists. There was no pressure that we become artists, but for us it was a logical and the only possible choice. We were immersed in that environment; we were breathing that air…

Z.G.D: You say “Buddhas of Bamiyan, Pregate per la pace and Wooden Angel form a video trilogy (2003 – 2005) that is most characteristic for my work and my position as an artist.” Why do you consider them as a trilogy? ‘In Allah/God We Trust’ is an interesting work. If it was formed as a video, would you think it as the fourth? And religion(s) has/have an important spot in your works. Why is it so?

T.B: I consider them a trilogy because they were made with the same strategy and almost in the same period of time (although they were made in a two year span). The idea is that the spiritual value is the most important aspect of things and that all other values such as historical, archeological, material, artistic or any other value, depend on it. That means: if something is wrong and in collision with universal (God’s) laws, it has no value and the destruction of it is not a loss, but a gain and new value. It is a fight for truth and redefinition of notions that changed their meaning during the history. All these three works have a destructive appearance – the destruction of images from an old Bible in Buddhas of Bamiyan, burning of an old wooden angel’s head in Wooden Angel and the destruction of a plate in Pregate per la pace. In that sense they form a trilogy, but each of them could stand by itself.

The work In Allah/God We Trust is a parody on the American motto In God We Trust, because they are forced to understand that they cannot appropriate God and that another notion-name penetrated into their system (Allah).
My works are not defined by media. Video is used only as documentation of certain processes or performances. The media is subordinated to the content.

Most of my works derive from a religious position or to be more precise and avoid the word ‘religion’, from a belief that there is a Creator of all things and that there is a ‘spiritual gravity’, an optimal way of behaving according to Creator’s perfect laws. I am not a member of any religious group, although I was born as a Catholic and was Jehovah Witness for 15 years. My father is widely known as very specific in that ‘religious’ sense and I certainly share some of his views. We do not believe that we become believers or part of a religion by birth, but by choice and understanding. It is a tough fight because it is very difficult to express pure ideas in a world that has contaminated all notions during the history.
Love, God, Truth, Good, Human, Nature, all these notions carry a huge quantity of connotations, misunderstandings, misuses, interpretations, etc. How to express, for example, the knowledge that the church has nothing to do at all with God?

Z.G.D: ‘Gold’ put a smile on my face. It’s so simple and the text or poem -whichever you want to call- under it means a lot… Where did you get the idea for it?

T.B: Gold and In Allah/God We Trust were made during my MA study in London. I perceived England as the last world power described in the Bible (Anglo-America) and as such very important to deal with and to deconstruct some of its ideas. I made a small research and found mottos where the word God was used. Of course, it was used in order to accentuate the power of the King (Queen), the Empire and give it the Divine importance. By adding one letter to God, I made subversion in those mottos and exposed the real nature of the Empire, his interest in Gold not God.

Z.G.D: Some artists want to give a hidden message to the viewers and some just don’t. How do you feel about the audience? Do you think or worry about the audience when you create your artwork?

T.B: The audience is a very important factor in the understanding of the work. The artist takes into account the ‘presumed’ knowledge of the public. It is not good to underestimate the public. Metaphors, parabolas, symbols, rebuses are legitimate methods of achieving a deep understanding of the work by the public. Of course there are some hidden messages; the public has to make an effort to understand. I think that an artist must have the most demanding public in his/her mind, even if such a public doesn’t exist. The artist is often in front of the public, he/she gives form to ideas that are in the air but not yet expressed.

Z.G.D: How did the people in the street react when they see you dressed up like in the old British movies in ‘Walk Through London’?

T.B: First of all, I must admit that I needed quite a lot of courage to get dressed as a gentleman and get out in the center of London, but I was aware that it was an opportunity to realize that idea. Now or never.
The funny thing is that many people reacted very normally; almost not noticing me, as if my way of dressing was a common one. I think that many people are excluded from reality, they are in their own thoughts or they are used to see such eccentric way of dressing every day. Young people noticed me and few of them reacted with laugh and teasing. I was thrown out from Burlington Arcade because of the camera that was behind me documenting the performance. I even think that I was followed by an undercover police agent…

Z.G.D: What about Mladen Stilinovic? Did he comment on your gesture?

T.B: There is a very-well known sentence by Stilinovic that says “An Artist who does not speak English is not an Artist”. After the Walk I did in London, I published an article on a Croatian website that I named “An Artist who doesn’t pretend to be Englishmen is not an Artist”. Of course, it was a paraphrase of his known idea. I know Stilinovic, he is a great artist, but we never talked about those works.

Z.G.D: ‘Srpsko-Hrvatski’ is another work that affected me a lot. I know a little Serbian and I took some help from my friends from Serbia and Croatia and I also heard that The Croatian Government is trying to change the common words and the language. What do you think about this?

T.B: The video was based on an old school gramophone record (78 rpm) for learning of the Serbo-Croatian language. Serbo-Croatian is a coined term, an attempt to define a “common” language of the two people’s intended to overcome their linguistic as well as ethnic differences and conflicts. We used to learn the language and its grammar under that blanket term, it formed our particularity and it marked an entire historical period. In today’s context, after the most recent turmoil in the region, the term and the “sound” of those old records acquire an entirely different connotation, and the mental images they produce are pregnant with emotions and memories.

The difference between Croatian and Serbian language is in the writing (when the Serbs use Cyrillic letter), pronunciation and writing of some words. There were also words imported into Croatian from Serbian and the government tried to “purify” the language by excluding those words and by searching for “authentic” Croatian words. That praxis was much stronger in the nineties. I think that it is impossible to force nations to live together by imposing language, laws, habits, ideas…The only solution for Croatia, Serbia and the whole world is to exclude nations and nationalisms, religions, political fight for power, greed, selfishness, etc. The rule of the Kingdom of God is the only solution.

Z.G.D: Some artists – for example Warhol or Koons – say that there is no hidden meaning behind the surface. What is hidden behind the structure and line of your art?

T.B: Nowadays, if you mention God and you openly deal with spirituality as an artist, you are perceived as someone who is old fashioned, narrow-minded and who doesn’t understand the transgressive contemporarity. I agree that works that deal with spirituality may be banal, one-sided and kitsch (although that can happen with all other subjects). That’s why my works tend to be more hermetical, to deal with some subjects laterally. It is often subversion in the system, a slight change of meaning(s), a dislocation or a change of material. I prefer to implicate than to explicate, such a strategy has more impact on the public because it requires their active intellectual effort.

Z.G.D: Can we say that your works have political aspects? What do you think about the relationship between art & politics?

T.B: I think that all is connected: art, religion, politics, science, nature… We cannot talk about separate fields. Art is not a non-responsible game without rules. It is not an escape area, separated from reality. Art is immersed in this time and space and it is not art if it doesn’t reflect it somehow. In that sense my works have a very strong political aspect but it is not a fight for power or fight in the name of some political ideology. It is not activism, because I do not believe in partial solutions. It is an expression of the awareness that there is no political solution for problems that require a radical change of mind.

Z.G.D: And here is my last question which will sound classic a bit but what is the role of the artist in society? Do you think that your work is easily understandable by an average person?

T.B: First of all, the artist is responsible to himself, his conscience and God. One of his missions is to seek for the truth and to speak about it.
The artist as a person should be an ethical vertical, because I believe in ethics before aesthetics.
I think that my work is understandable to all that follow the development of art and are ready to explore more deeply its meanings.

Z.G.D: Thanks a lot for your time Tomislav =)
Pozdrav iz Istambula!

T.B: Thanks for the interview.

http://istanbulmuseum.org/artists/tomislav%20brajnovic.html 

Man in Trliž, 2011

Man in Trliž, 2011

Man in Trliž, 2011, video, sound, colour, 4’00”, Vizura Aperta, Momjan

Trliž is an old worker’s suit widely used in past times by local people in Istria. During a media project called Vizura Aperta, I dressed in Trliž and documented my presence on different sites in the town of Momjan.

Book of Life, 2011, video DVD, 06’15″

In “Law of Love and Book of Life” Tomislav Brajnovic continues his preoccupation with questioning and interpretation, defining and redefining of cultural an historical heritage. While doing so, he always seeks for primary meaning which is, often concealed by layers of historical formulations. These, he will disavow through radical destructive acts, specifically in the case of “Law of Love and Book of Life” he will use the process both creative and destructive: he is recycling books “Tuđman, prva politička biografija” (Tuđman, first political biography) and “Ustav Republike Hrvatske” (The Constitution of the Republic of Croatia) in the end using the material made from books to create paper.

The fact that both texts are political construction of the historical and political period in which they appeared that gave them high level of credibility – reveals their nature as constructs.

It is this conditioned relevance of the document, weather it is a biography of the ex president, whose figure had in specific conditions hypertrophied into the father of the nation equal to the state, patriotism and such categories, or weather it is the highest judicio-historical law, is what occupies the artist. He pledges for truth. Trying to extract it from clusters of context, free of vulgarization. Physical process of recycling is a symbolic act of purification, a kind of mental recycling…

[from the text by Irena Bekic]

See the final installation

Book of Life, Gallery Prozori, Zagreb, 2011, photo by Sandra Vitaljić

Book of Life, Gallery Prozori, Zagreb, 2011, photo by Sandra Vitaljić

Law of Love, Gallery Prozori, Zagreb, 2011, photo by Sandra Vitaljić

Law of Love, Gallery Prozori, Zagreb, 2011, photo by Sandra Vitaljić

Book of Life & Law of Love, MMSU, Rijeka, 2011, photo by Stefano Pasquini

In “Law of Love and Book of Life” Tomislav Brajnovic continues his preoccupation with questioning and interpretation, defining and redefining of cultural an historical heritage. While doing so, he always seeks for primary meaning which is, often concealed by layers of historical formulations. These, he will disavow through radical destructive acts, specifically in the case of “Law of Love and Book of Life” he will use the process both creative and destructive: he is recycling books “Tuđman, prva politička biografija” (Tuđman, first political biography) and “Ustav Republike Hrvatske” (The Constitution of the Republic of Croatia) in the end using the material made from books to create paper.

The fact that both texts are political construction of the historical and political period in which they appeared that gave them high level of credibility – reveals their nature as constructs.

It is this conditioned relevance of the document, weather it is a biography of the ex president, whose figure had in specific conditions hypertrophied into the father of the nation equal to the state, patriotism and such categories, or weather it is the highest judicio-historical law, is what occupies the artist. He pledges for truth. Trying to extract it from clusters of context, free of vulgarization. Physical process of recycling is a symbolic act of purification, a kind of mental recycling..

[from the text by Irena Bekic]

See the video of the process of recycling.

by Iva Kovač

Tomislav Brajnović, a Croatian contemporary/conceptual artist of the younger generation, goes to the far north of Norway to create a series of works entitled The Arctic Circle. He goes to the fiords of Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago which is only a thousand kilometres south of the North Pole, as part of New York’s The Farm Foundation residence programme that takes artists and scientists to a place whose inaccessibility and punishing climate impose many restrictions on the lives and work of the artists.
This residence, like many other similar programmes, sets a framework theme which oftentimes, as in this particular case, is a mere platitude – the issue of global warming. Brajnović officially proposes a symbolic intervention in the Arctic ecosystem which could (in reality) become practicable only after intensive warming. The melting of the ice would, in theory, enable two seedlings of olive trees which he brings with him from Istria to potentially take root and grow. However, the formal restrictions imposed by Norwegian law, despite the fact that the intervention is highly hypothetical, prevent the author from going through with his work in its original form. The irony of this restriction becomes even greater when we are reminded that probably Svarbald’s only landmark is the so called Global Seeds Vault – a vault safekeeping all known seeds, a sort of a Noah’s Arc for plants with precisely such purpose: to ensure the growth of new life in case of a cataclysm. Out of this foiled attempt at individual contribution Brajnović devised his video entitled Peace, documenting the destruction of the olive tree seedling. Contrasting the olive tree as a symbol of peace with the act of its destruction (by means of a large lump of coal being thrown over the frozen seedling) and entitling his work Peace he creates a simple contradiction. He pursues this style in a series of photographs entitled Greed, Fire, History and Speed in line with the words with which he briefly intervenes on the snow and puts them in correlation with the remnants of former settlements – a mining colony built there for coal exploitation which was speedily built and became dilapidated equally fast at the end of the previous century. By contrasting the failed industrialisation attempt and the words which underline Brajnović’s critical attitude towards positivist progress, he gradually leads us towards his extremely interesting and visually impressive videos recorded at the residence. Through these Brajnović slowly gives himself to the colossal landscape around him. Aware of the necessity to expose the methods of those whom their alleged admiration for the primitive and aboriginal never stopped from subjugating them both economically and politically, he does not lose himself in the iconoclastic effects of criticism that prevent all enjoyment, thus most frequently preventing creativity. Although one’s indulgence to pleasure is often interpreted as conscious neglect of one’s own environment, it would not hurt to mention Rancière’s pardon for the aesthetic which came about in the context of the grand critical exploits and his claim that the potential for emancipation lies precisely in the view according to which all spectators are equal. It is the unceremonious neglect of political reality and the focus on the aesthetic that open up a potential for true emancipation. 
In his video entitled Genesis Brajnović repeats words from the Book of Genesis in order to record (and perhaps create) what we see before us. After the firmament of heaven and earth had been divided, once night and day were divided, we were given the opportunity to see and create. The frame shows nothing but a radio from which the voice of Tomislav Brajnović suggests to us that all possibilities remain open.

Beside the Genesis is the video entitled Flag. It consists of a barely moving frame in which a flag carrying the inscription Yahweh flutters in the wind, its pole rammed into the frozen snow, as if signifying a claimed property. This reference to colonisation is nevertheless diminished as the flag has no specific meaning. Because the word Yahweh rather than the word God is used, the associations within the cultural environment where the work is exhibited are drawn back to the distant past and myth, and although religion is extensively used as a means for economic and political gains, the allusion here is rejected, made overly pre-modern – to the time before the national states emerged. In terms of ideas, we relate the Flag video with Genesis and read it as a locus of potentiality.
The video entitled Ego-trip came into being on the basis of its name-sake series of photo-performances where, in various environments, Brajnović himself appears in a black suit which, in addition to warning about a situation of formal significance, also emphasises or exaggerates that same significance to the point of absurd by beaming the light installation attached to his suit directly into his face. At Svarbald Brajnović wears his Ego-trip suit and, thus illuminated, he now puts himself in a film. The camera circles around an anchored ship at dusk and at times catches glimpses of Brajnović’s illuminated figure. Ego-trip has always been documented at dusk. In the photo-performances series we read this as a technical necessity arising from the fact that at that time of day it is sufficiently light to distinguish the background yet it is sufficiently dark to see that Brajnović is illuminated. However, it seems that in the video this is no decision but rather the only option. The footage of an empty ship floating at anchor in the majestic landscape of the Arctic Circle evinces a frame from an epic film. The title is justified solely by the use of the same suit he uses in the Ego-trip series but the ego is lost to nature which now surrounds it. The monumentality evincing romantic heroes no longer bears expansionist connotations because countless times we have been forewarned of the dangers lurking behind the escape into the ulterior and because of the confidence that Brajnović inspires owing to his already demonstrated autonomy from individual established ideologies. 
It seems that Brajnović has a sovereign grip on the monumental, eternal topics. Still, it is worth emphasising that these eternal topics in his works are not Eurocentric as was the case in modernism. Equally building upon the traditions of modernism, the avant-garde and neo-avant-garde alike, using methods of appropriation, comparison, quotations and similar conceptualist approaches, he leaves room for openness. Brajnović’s openness is closely linked to our time in which, with a degree of scepticism, we still revisit the deconstructed idealisms of the past, re-evaluating, for instance, the exploring expeditions from the time when we as a species strove to find finitude.

Text by Iva Kovač, published in a catalog for exhibition “Flags” at Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje, Macedonia 2011, and in art magazine “Likovne Besede”, Ljubljana, Slovenia 2011. The text was written at the “Writing a Text on a Contemporary Art Exhibition” workshop run by Petja Grafenauer as part of the World of Art school of contemporary art of the SCCA Institute, Ljubljana.

In the Paradise there is Place for Anyone, 2013, archive of lamps, inscription in Croatian: In the paradise there is place for everyone, photo by Robert Sosic

casino de

Dubrovnik, 2013, archive of photographs and negatives, neon display with text

casino

Under The Flag, Golo Brdo, 5th November 2012, photo by Robert Sosic

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casino en ligne

Stranded Ship, site-specific installation, Rijeka, 2012

Stranded Ship, site-specific installation, Rijeka, 2012

Installation realised during the Pier Shear project organised by Matthew Mazzotta. A concrete block at the outer side of the pier was converted in a stranded ship. On the inner side of the pier a table with cheese and wine was placed. The ship and the table were connected with balls of wool.

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jeux en ligne

Genesis, Arctic 2009, video DVD,1’57’’’

Video footage of a radio receiver in the wilderness of the Arctic from which the author’s voice is heard reading the Book of Genesis. The recording was broadcasted from the ship from a radio transmitter installed by the artist Osman Khan.

Video Genesis was made during the The Arctic Circle project.

Arctic, 2009, video DVD, 3’12’’

A flag with the tetragrammaton JHVH (author of the flag: Marcelo Brajnovic) was pinned in the snow in the North of Svalbard. In the background: open sea and view towards the North Pole.

Video Flag was made during the The Arctic Circle project.

Olive tree planting, Arctic, 2009

Olive tree planting, Arctic, 2009

Olive tree planting, Arctic, 2009

Olive tree planting, Arctic, 2009

I brought on the boat two olive tree seedlings from Croatia. The intention was to freeze one, make a hole in the glacier and leave it there until the glacier melts due to global warming. I was not allowed to do so because of the law that forbids leaving ‘strange biological organisms’ on the island. As a consequence, I decided to take the ice cube with the seedling, place it on a beach covered with thin layer of snow and destroy it with a piece of coal – video documentation - Peace.
Olive Tree Planting was made during the The Arctic Circle project.

photo by Amy Lynn Wiita

photo by Amy Lynn Wiita

Arctic 2009, video DVD, 0’47’’, video by Tsui Kuang-Yu

A frozen olive tree seedling was placed on a black beach covered with a thin layer of snow. I wrote the word Peace under it and I broke the frozen seedling with a piece of found cole.

Video Peace was made during the The Arctic Circle project.

Inscriptions in snow, photographs, Svalbard, 2009

Inscriptions in snow, photographs, Svalbard, 2009

Inscriptions in snow, photographs, Svalbard, 2009

Inscriptions in snow, photographs, Svalbard, 2009

My reaction to an old abandoned English quarry on Svalbard resulted with the documentation of four interventions in snow. The quarry and some machines were perfectly preserved due the constant very low temperatures. The archipelago was known as ‘No mans land’ and the land was claimed by placing claim signs whith owners name. With the words Greed, Fire, Speed and History, I tried to define their impetus and reason for coming on such unfriendly an inaccessible place, and give a critique from a historical distance.

Greed, Fire, Speed, History was made during the The Arctic Circle project.

Arctic 2009, performance, photo by Tsui Kuang-Yu

Arctic 2009, performance, photo by Tsui Kuang-Yu

This work is the result of a conversation with my brother Petar who was wondering why we percieve the North as up and the South as down. I took a compass, placed it on the snow pointing to the North and I layed down with my head orientated towards the South.

South is Up North is Down was made during the The Arctic Circle project.

Ego Trip Zlarin - prototype

Ego Trip Venice, photo by Xiao Quan

Ego Trip Glacier, photo by Tsui Kuang-Yu

Ego Trip Noorderlicht, photo by Tsui Kuang-Yu

Ego Trip Svalbard, photo by Ian Burns

Ego Trip New Alesund, photo by Sarah Anne Johnson

Ego Trip Times Square, photo by Nebojša Shoba Šerić

Ego Trip New York, photo by Raphaele Shirley

Under the Flag, 2012

‘Ego Trip Noorderlicht’ Arctic 2009, video by Janet Biggs, video DVD, 5’21’’

New York 2009, video by Goran Škofić, video DVD, 2’59″

‘Ego Trip’ is the presence and journey of the artistic (human) ego to various important places (paradigmatic places and centers of power), among people, emphasizing artist’s personality, accentuating his conceitedness, stripping his ego. The ‘Ego Trip’ is the reaction to the often fake humbleness and social sensibility expressed by artists (among others). It is also questioning the ethical dimension of art and its credibility and sincerity. In that sense I made a suit that has an autonomous illumination and will emblaze my face (similar to a chandelier with arms extending out from the main body). This project resulted with a series of photographs of large format and video documentation.

Locations: Venice, Arctic, Times Square…

The shooting was taking place at twilight, between day and night, when both the autonomous illumination of the head and the surrounding space are visible (while shooting in the town there should be the right balance with the light of commercials and street-lights).

Ego Trip is also a part of the project The Arctic Circle

Genesis

The Flag

Greed

South is up North is down, photo by Tsui Kuang-Yu

Olive tree planting

The Arctic Circle project set off in October 2009 under the organisation of The Farm Foundation from New York. Fifteen artists, three scientists and the rest of the team (Director of the Foundation, a journalist and five crew members) sailed the fjords of Svalbard, approximately 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole, for fifteen days. The hundred-year-old ship became a temporary incubator for reflection, exploration and co-operation with its carefully-selected passengers. The raw conditions in the fjords of the archipelago (the cold and the inability to carry out lasting interventions in the area…) where expeditions to conquest the far North usually set off from, dictated a specific way of realising the artistic projects and carrying out scientific research.

Brajnović made a series of interventions in the area: Greed, Fire, History, Speed, which he documented with photographs and by recording four videos: Peace, Genesis, Flag and Ego Trip.

To Northern Ireland and Back, video, sound, colour, 3’23”, 2011

Grá, old trunk, lead, 2008

Grá, lead casting, 2008

Grá is the Irish word for Love. I used an old trunk to engrave the three letters and filled them with molten lead. Work done during the Leitrim Sculpture Centre residency, Manorhamilton, Ireland, 2008.

Slate's Memory, lead drawing on stone, 2008

Work done during the Leitrim Sculpture Centre residency, Manorhamilton 2008.

Srpsko – hrvatski, 2005, video, sound, colour, 10”23′

The video was made on the basis of an old 78 rpm record used in former Yougoslavia schools for learning Serbo-Croatian language. Serbo-Croatian is a linguistic expression for the attempt to create a common language of two nations: Serbian and Croatian.

The idea of the work is to create mental images full of emotions and remembrance.

Wooden Angel, installation view, Spitalska Chapel, Celje, 2005

Wooden Angel, 2005, video, sound, colour, 10’5”

An original medieval wooden angel’s head was thrown on a fire. The video documents the process of slow burning and disappearing of the head.

Pregate per la pace (Pray for Peace), 2005, sound, colour, 5’11”

Meat has been eaten from a gilded plate with images of Pope Pio XII, Robert Kennedy, John Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Once emptied, the plate with the inscription Pregate per la pace (Pray for Peace) was smashed into pieces with a hammer.

'Sense in Place' Site-ations Int. Europe 2005/06 - Flat Holm, Bay Art Gallery setup

'Sense in Place' Site-ations Int. Europe 2005/06 - Flat Holm

Jenny vs EV gallery setup

Jenny vs Ev Coal Brick

“Sense in Place”, Site – ations International, Europe 2005 was a year long site – related arts project exploring thematic, artistic and multi – media responses to different places on the peripheries of Europe. The project involved an exchange of artists from 10 European countries and the dissemination of accrued knowledge within publications, conferences and educational projects.

Sixty artists investigated the social, historical and environmental contexts of diverse places, both revealing the hidden and often contested nature of these regions.

The international events: “Sense in Place I-VI” took place in six co-organizing countries: Wales, Latvia, Poland, Spain, Iceland and Ireland were complimented by three bi-lateral education projects.

Tomislav Brajnovic’s project within Sense in Place includes works; Jenny vs EV, English Lesson audio and Flat Holm.

English Lesson

This audio is an interpolation of two different audio recordings. Y fam a’l Baban is an old Welsh song about a mother and her child. The other recording is the first Lesson of English language – 1st Record, Page One, Chapter One. Both recordings (on 78 rpm records) are found on boot sales and antique shops.

The idea was to confront the old traditional Welsh language with the British Empire and it’s English language imposition.

The audio English Lesson was made during the project Sense in Place

Flat Holm Project, 2005, Cardiff, Wales, aluminium, lead, 180 x 220 x 130 cm

Flat Holm Project, 2005, Cardiff, Wales, aluminium, lead, 180 x 220 x 130 cm

Flat Holm Project, 2005, Cardiff, Wales, aluminium, lead, 180 x 220 x 130 cm

Flat Holm Project, 2005, Cardiff, Wales, aluminium, lead, 180 x 220 x 130 cm

Flat Holm Project, 2005, Cardiff, Wales, aluminium, lead, 180 x 220 x 130 cm

Flat Holm Project, 2005, Cardiff, Wales, aluminium, lead, 180 x 220 x 130 cm

Flat Holm Project, 2005, Cardiff, Wales, aluminium, lead, 180 x 220 x 130 cm

My work in Cardiff evolved from a previous work made in London during my MA study (Greenhouse, 2003).

Through the year spent in London I collected different objects (from streets and boot sales) related to my experience and perception of England. During that time I formed the idea of a “container” for all those objects. I used the greenhouse as a symbol of English space and as a container of time and my experiences. Although troubled, that space was “open” to outer influences (sun, light) and in the same time it allowed a view from the inside out.

Since the circumstances in the world and in Britain changed dramaticaly (due to political escalation) I decided to logically continue the idea of the greenhouse by “closing” that space, alluding to it’s becoming hermetical, cautious, protecting itself from the outer influences and dangers.

Lead appeared to be the apropriate material to use considering its symbolic value and the wide use in the area of Cardiff and Britain.

The isolated Flat Holm Island and its former radar ramp were the perfect spot for such an object contributing with its raw beauty and historical past (Victorian and WW2 fortress, first radio broadcasting by Marconi, etc.).

Flat Holm was made during the project Sense in Place

Jenny vs EV, coal brick, Victorian brick, Bay Art Gallery, Cardiff, 2005

Jenny vs EV, coal brick, Victorian brick, Bay Art Gallery, Cardiff, 2005

Jenny vs EV, coal brick, Victorian brick, Bay Art Gallery, Cardiff, 2005

Cardiff was one of the main ports for exports of coal. Coal as artistic material draw my attention during the ‘Sense in Place’ project in Cardiff. I understood coal as a material linked to the history of Wales, its tradition and position in the British Empire. I decided to make a coal brick with an embossed image of Welsh Jenny (stereotypical image of Welsch women) as a symbol of Wales. I collected coal powder, mixed it with cement and casted a brick. In a later discussion with local people I was told that similar bricks were made during World War II because there was no coal but only coal powder and that was the way to solidify, transport and burn it.

The coal brick was displayed next to an original brick taken from a Victorian fortress situated on Flat Holm Island, Cardiff.

Jenny vs EV was made during the project Sense in Place

Tomislav Brajnović belongs to younger generation of Croatian contemporary art, and his youth pours out of two springs: the first is merely chronological and refers to the year of birth (1965); the second is, on the other hand, associated with the fact that Brajnović started his professional, i.e. artistic education relatively late, and therefore – began to produce relatively late. At twenty-eight Brajnović is over with his first student year on the Academy (KABK) in Den Hague. What follows is the Art Academy in Zagreb (class of Prof. –uro Seder) from which he graduates in 1999, i.e. at the age of thirty-four, which is a year below the ‘European standard’ according to which young artist is considered to be an artist younger than thirty-five. However, Brajnović has had one-man shows since 1990 (Rovinj) and collective presentations since 1993 (Den Hague). He was part of the prestigious Zagreb Graphic Exhibition (in 1994), not to mention his previous shows in the eighties mostly related to Rovinj’s traditional art manifestations (Grizia, Art Colony).

The fact that he was embraced by art in an early age – though he lacked formal education – has everything to do with the artistic milieu he has been brought up in: not only his grandfather Željko Hegedušić), his father (Marčelo Brajnović) and his mother (Zvjezdana Hegedušić-Brajnović) are artists, but that is also the profession of his brother Petar and both of his sisters. It would be extremely difficult not to be an artist in such an environment. But it is not before exhibition in Pula in 1998 that Tomislav Brajnović became ‘what he is today’ and by which he shall be recognised now and onwards as an artist of distinctive aspirations and original expression. Nataša Šegota whose review was in the catalogue of that very exhibition said it was ‘the first author’s solo exhibition of greater significance’. She could anticipate even then that “Brajnović is an author whose art vision, exhibited to the public eyes over past few years, is very likely a good sign of what is to be a future artistic authority on our territories”. With a sensibility of well-informed art historian as well as art critic, Šegota could predict Brajnović’s indisputable position within the corpus of contemporary Croatian art from the very beginning. Why? Because precisely that exhibition has been Brajnović’s “penetration into language” where he accumulated all his two-year production (1997, 1998) in one place alone and presented himself as a thinking author of quite particular interests and way of expression – i.e. language. We can track down at least three sorts of author’s interest spheres from this ‘inauguration’ or ‘initiation’ exhibition, i.e. three basic modes of how he reacts to the environment (physical and social) and proper inner self (psyche and heritage), respectively.

To begin with, let us consider the author’s perception of his own persona as the upholder of the tradition, i.e. a person who knows how to pay homage (hommage) to his predecessors, whether they were spiritual or blood relatives. Among the spiritual kinsfolk, Brajnović picked up Ivan Kožarić and trifled with his name and his golden colour in the work named “Kožarić’s gold”. In his graduation thesis he did the same when he decided to reinterpret in painting the game form his mother’s family members had been playing long ago, rewriting their comments on the pieces of paper (Mother’s game, 1999 – Richter’s game for the patient under 20). The latter is the case where spiritual and blood connection overlapped (the Hegedušić family). Somewhat later, in 2003, at the time he was still living in London at the Central St. Martins College of Art (one-year postgraduate study) and after having performed a walk through London in a formal, typically English suit with a topper on his head (‘Walk Through London in a ‘Morning Suit’), Brajnović installed a text on the Internet called ‘Artist who does not pretend to be an English is not an artist at all’ which is a paraphrase of a famous work M. Stilinović had done some time before (‘Artist who does not speak English is no artist’), by which he paid homage to his older colleague, not hesitating to refer to him as an idol.

Above-said examples firmly confirm generally accepted view that neither modern nor contemporary art can manage without tradition, which has been – both in work and in words – proved by the greatest names of the world art scene. Moreover, in a manner of the most important world’s religious traditions (Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism), Brajnović (through the above-mentioned works) manifests his spiritual maturity in terms of humbleness those traditions teach and practice. Work titled “Mother’s game” partly leads us toward some sort of sentimentalism that has also been present in Brajnović’s work, and perhaps most obviously in work named ‘Euphemia’ (1999), designed as double slide-projection from the inside of an old Istrian stone cottage, demonstrating the author’s grandmother pouring maize porridge out of her bowl.

The second Brajnović’s ‘movens’, easily found in his first solo exhibition, is his prompt reaction to the social setting, whether it pointed to the current state and situation or freshest up-to-date events. This group encloses works such as “Eagle-Adler I and II” (both made in 1998), “After Tito”, “Tito” (1998) and “Shizma-Mobil” (1998). The latter demonstrated figures of the Pope and patriarch rotating and replacing one another constantly in a window display of a gallery, which provoked quite a public scandal at the time. Brajnović has perhaps been most famous for this kind of provocative works that are less than desirable in any regime or ideological system. If we go by the same line of interest in his work and follow it further on until the present day, we stumble across a work titled “A wonder of Croatian naive art” (1998) that displayed a shining box on which the title’s cut out letters were stuck on, which all pointed to the ruralization tendency of the contemporary art of the time and its retrograde regression at the expense of live and vital modernity. Then, a solo exhibition in City Gallery of Zagreb followed in 1999: it displayed only one installation called “Revolution is not envisaged by Law” whose subject was pretty profane and it concerned legal regulation of Zagreb soccer club’s name, i.e. either Dinamo or Croatia. In 2000 he wanted to disclose a true face of Roman Empire by a series of inscriptions set up in Pula (“Theatre of Crime” in front of the Arena; “Triumphal Arch of Genocide” in front of the Triumphal Arch of Sergijevci, etc.). Then, there was a lead coated box that kept changing in its rotating part one word of the text that read “In God/ Allah we trust” for another (in 2003). Many similar works followed, but we shall stop ourselves here. These examples unmistakably point to the wide variety of Brajnović’s interests: he treats equally dead and far away past of some thousand years ago, unable to harm anyone anymore (ancient Rome), and up-to-date events fresh out of the newspaper columns, ready to be an object of artistic interest and activity.

By equal treatment of ancient history and the latest events, Brajnović actually draws attention to the same matrix used now and then by ideological systems in order to manipulate, but, what’s more, through his reinterpretation of historical events he reveals the present manipulation of the past as well.

And last but not least, there’s the third series that diagnoses a cryptogrammic (or let’s say cryptographic, cryptologic, cryptomnesiac) spirit and character of Brajnović’s works and interest, which is romantically interwoven into the girdle of subconscious memories, personal history and contemporary events, whatever. In his ‘first solo exhibition of greater significance’, we can recognise these works by their characteristic titles as ‘Reambulation’, ‘Revelation’ or ‘Reminiscence’ (all made in 1997), and they deal with the author himself, with his ancestors and their (mutual) history, but also with the end of the world (Armageddon) according to the Bible. Lead coated box objects that emit fire-coloured light from their centre and laterally, suggest a secret only partly revealed. The box is a coffer, an Ark of the Covenant hiding the first and the last secrets of the world; but then, it is also a wrapped up message ready to travel through time in order to reveal at the right time the mysteries it keeps and takes along to the consecrated, to the ones who know. On the one hand, leaden box layer protects the objects lest external forces penetrate into the interior, its protective coat is a shield against the atomic radiation (Noah’s Ark) in the case of Armageddon; on the other, it protects the unconsecrated from the perils hidden by the Secret.

Among all romantically criptogrammic works, we are to single out the most recent one – the Greenhouse – dated 2003, and produced in London during the author’s stay at one-year study programme. What author displays here is an entire microcosm of wonder, beauty and admiration for his own experience, prejudices and space (whether geographical, cultural, social, etc). The Greenhouse demonstrated artificially created (‘London’) fog ( Brajnović was later informed that the fog was no longer a problem to the city), slow motion audio recording of British anthem ‘God save the King’, slow motion video recording of a walk through London in formal ‘morning suit’ ( afore-mentioned work ), and various objects that Brajnović had bought or came across while in London. On this project, author himself has to say the following: “The Greenhouse project started as a site-specific installation in the garden of the house in which I lived while in London. The greenhouse served me as a symbol of typically English place, container of time and my own experiences, expectations and understanding of what England really was. I pictured ‘a work’ that could gradually be developed throughout an entire year by visiting street stands, second-hand shops, identifying and searching for things down the streets, and practising a theoretical research at the same time”

Complete private and personal cosmogony was built into and sealed up behind these glass structures that Brajnović carried over in Croatia and exhibited in Miroslav Kraljević Gallery in Zagreb in 2004. Indeed, the Greenhouse symbolically functions as an ‘English place’, as author states himself, a place so independent of climatic conditions and particularities of the northern islands that it allows subtropical flora to flourish on the north of Europe; it is a place of English leisure time and hobbies, a place that the British have taken and snatched away from the others. There’s a slight bitterness, a poignant condemnation and pungent irony in the work, because: there he is, a Croatian artist, scrutinising through a glass and lenses lives and habits of those who had once explored and oppressed the others. If we go any further by this line of association, we shall recall the Paxton’s (architect) Crystal Palace in London from its world’s exhibition in 1851, the master-piece of proto-modern architecture that had materialized the dream of gothic architects on mutual interfusion of external and internal space and on fully permeable wall membrane that gives a look into the house when built. Thus, Brajnović’s Greenhouse is some sort of exhibitionistic act – like every exhibition finally is – as it lets the looks of strangers go through his innermost feelings. Let us bring into memory manneristic Wunderkammern – literally ‘wonder-chambers’, otherwise Cabinets of Curiosities – which are in their own way proto-museums, and which were once resurrected by postmodernist art practice of the eighties as containers of objects found and processed, objet-trouve (made an art by the artist’s will) and artefacts; then Gesamtkunstwerk which is a fusion of all available artistic medias (what Brajnović actually did with the Greenhouse), and finally Duchamp, styles and movements originator, with his trunks where he amassed most of the stuff that he had created.

Another line of interest that Brajnović keeps following cannot pass unnoticed: religion. Let us only begin with “Shizma-mobil”, “Revelation”, and “Theatre of Crime” (a sign in front of Arena in Pula where Christians were once thrown to lions’ jaws), then “Temple of the Dead Gods” (2000), where a sign was set up in front of August’s temple also in Pula and then, for instance, “Obelisk” (2000) that compared the power of Vatican and Washington, or the work named “Arbre Magique” (2000) that dealt with the icons of our every-day life (rosaries, soccer clubs flags, pendants hanged upon the inside rear-view mirror of a car ) simultaneously quoting the Bible (in English): ‘You shall not bow down to any images”.

Religious discourse is part of the family and educational heritage and its variants are affirmative and critical simultaneously, but finally and always it has been the starting point and goal of Brajnović’s overall creative efforts in terms of his research for primeval and spiritual experience and meaning.

Janka Vukmir, (who signed the text for the catalogue of Brajnović’s solo exhibition in the County museum in Rovinj, 2000), made an acute observation that T. Brajnović was “one of the artists who explicitly plunge into the critique of society, politics, authority… mainly through confrontation of the dualities, comparison, parallelization of the realities and different historical eras, confrontation and superposition.”

We should add several other methodological patterns of which the first is a ‘method of deceit’, i.e. denunciation (after being detected) of reality, a method used by Slovenian group “IRWIN” in the middle and by the end of the eighties of the last century, who claimed that one thing could be explained by means of the other same thing (their well-known poster for ‘Dan mladosti’ had a poster from fascism era as a template). Similar did Brajnović demonstrate in his work/ exhibition “All those structures” (SC Gallery, Zagreb, 2001) where he played recorded speeches of Pavelić, Tito and Tuđman as well as reactions of the masses, thus mixing orators with the audience, through which he vividly explained ‘the sameness’ of political and ideological manipulation of different historical and ideological eras.

The second is the method of system(s) penetration. In Italy of the eighties (again!), this case went by name of ‘Arte parasita’. In Brajnovic’s work this method encloses, for instance, a series of “Urban picnics, 2001-2002” (along the highway, on Zrinjevac, at Andy Warhol’s exhibition in ‘Umjetnicki paviljon’, on the 36th ‘Zagrebački salon’, etc; all performed in Zagreb), or setting up signs in the waiting-room of the railway station that have absolutely nothing to do with the place itself (South Station, Boston, 2000), or “Apartheid” (1999) where he toys with the passage of the airport’s customs service (separate customs service passage for EU members and non EU members), or daily newspapers that Brajnović calls ‘public exhibition site’. In addition, sometimes he employs a method of distinct and emphasized contrasts, easily detected in some of his previously mentioned works, with the purpose of confusing and surprising the spectator with unexpectedness, i.e. with being ‘inadequately’ placed into an inadequate space (like “Urban picnics”, “South Station”, etc.).

Within the context of expressiveness and conspicuousness, we can conclude that Tomislav Brajnović is an author who discusses social, ideological, political issues, issues related to religion (church), authority, power, manipulation, collective myths and conventions, social rites and prejudices, consumerist view of life, media, commercials and propaganda; an author who questions relationships of public and private, society and individual, institution and individual, etc. His approach to those issues has been soberly analytical, critical and ultra engaged, his strategies mainly ‘descriptive and narrative’ (R. Šimunović), his language relatively simplified, pure, well-considered and polished , and message precise, subtle and refined.

However, under this surface layer there is another depth of Brajnović that pursues eternal philosophical themes of ethics, morality and/ or faith, relationship between material and spiritual; he makes an almost impossible effort in wish to extract some spiritual substance out of the turmoil of daily and secular events. In any case, through his works that constantly develop, mutually interconnect and intertwine, build up or supplement one another (like the Brajnović’s family house on Golo Brdo in Rovinjsko selo ), Brajnović gives a try to decode and define his own identity and his soul that is partly his own inner self and partly a sum of all the other layers, generally termed society, history, culture, civilisation, state, nation, etc.

Afore-stated quest for primeval spiritual experience and meaning (essentiality) toward which Brajnović aspires actually moulds his artistic view and life-style that will most certainly leave a deep trace in contemporary Croatian art.

Text by Berislav Valušek, published in exhibition catalogues in Rovinj and Opatija, Croatia in 2004.

Gold, 2003-2004, text on LED display

In Gold We Trust
Gold And My Right
So Help Me Gold
Gold Is With Us
Gold Be Praised
Elizabeth II By Grace Of Gold Defender Of The Faith
Gold Our Trust
Gold Preserve London
Gold Preserve New England
Gold Keep Our Broad Land
Praise Gold For All
Gold Bless America
One Nation Under Gold
Gold Bless The Queen

In “The Greenhouse” Brajnović placed cheaply acquired objects – books, photographs, lamps, typing machine or teapots that were bought, according to the inveterate English habit, on the markets or in the second hand shops or were simply found in the street. In the process of realization of the project he associatively played with many more issues. The greenhouse itself reminds us of the British obsession with gardening or hobby while the teapot with a tea cup naturally brings to mind the unomittable five o’clock tea. Once established “The Greenhouse” was a reminder of the traditional/typical home of English middle class. The atmosphere of familiarity and privacy was achieved by the animation of the space: the table lamp was turned on and the old, scratched record played «God Save the King». The old black and white 8 mm film was projected on the greenhouse wall showing the smoke pouring out of the installed recipient – just like London fog, still present only within an outsider’s imagination. It is unnecessary to stress out that the host gladly manipulates this prejudice. On the screen of the old television set we follow Brajnović’s performance when he, wearing a morning suit rented from «Lipman & Sons» and handling a walking stick form «James Smith & Sons Umbrellas», strolled Bond Street and Piccadilly Circus in London.

Such descriptive and narrative strategy includes even more stratified cmmunication as some kind of initiator of collective memory – area concerning monarchic system of government of the former world power, relationships between high and middle classes, foundations built through centuries for a recognizable and always reliable brand of commercial paradise. This strategy will become even more complex when the object is going to be extracted from the context that socially defines it and placed into a condensed gallery space where the signified/the object becomes the subject that manipulates or is manipulated by the signifier and by the recipient/the public. The hybrid abundance of subjects enclosed within the reflecting apparatuses of history and myth, modernity and tradition, center and periphery, is shifting away by appropriation and representation from rhetoric while complexly spreading into the multilayered processes of interpretation of another/self, our emotions, notions, values and beliefs.

The artist’s position is clear: shifting the weight from the historical to the actual he is striving to articulate a discourse about the time when the humanity crisis arose after the society/art killed God. As an obsessive analyst of the powers of world domination he is interested in whatever happened to the democracy, a way of re-establishing of the belief in the possibility of balance between the humanity and nature as well as means of hearing the word and initiation of the dialogue after the media and technology jam. That is why we may consider “The Greenhouse” as an engaged search for a moral axis (although it might seem as a utopistic illusion in the contemporary cynical world) which does not exclude hope as a possible realization of the complete being.

Text by Ruzica Simunovic on the occasion of the exhibition and catalogue in the Miroslav Kraljevic Gallery, Zagreb
http://g-mk.hr/programme/Tomislav-Brajnović:-Greenhouse/95/ 

Hymn Machine, 2003, electric organ, wooden mechanism, electric machine.

Hymn Machine, 2003, electric organ, wooden mechanism, electric machine.

Hymn Machine, 2003, electric organ, wooden mechanism, electric machine.

Hymn Machine, 2003, electric organ, wooden mechanism, electric machine.

Sketch for the Hymn Machine

Sketch for the melody played by Hymn Machine

Sketch for the Hymn Machine

Sketch for the Hymn Machine

The machine plays the first 12 tunes of the American anthem in a distorted and disturbed way.

himn-machine-audio

Greenhouse, 2003 London

Greenhouse, 2003 London

Greenhouse, 2003 London

Greenhouse, 2003 London

• objects found on flee markets of London
• projection of a standard 8 mm film, video, sound, light
• Film projection: 8 mm standard film “London Fog“, a movie filmed in London showing the slow disappearance of the porcelain electric coffee pot
• Sound: “God Save the King” from the old and damaged record, slowed down from 78 rpm to 45 rpm
• Video: “Walk Through London“A slow-motion loop of the documentation showing artist’s walk through London dressed in the gentlemen suit

The “Greenhouse” project started as a site-specific installation in the garden where I was living while in London. I used the greenhouse as a symbol of English space, a container of time and my experiences, expectations and understanding of England. The idea was to put together the “work” done during the whole year by visiting boot sales, second-hand shops, searching for and recognizing things on street and by theoretical research.After moving the greenhouse from its original location (although it is not the same greenhouse) to the gallery space, changes occurred in perception and the greenhouse became an isolated sculptural object deprived of its determinating surrounding.

Link to the text by Ruzica Simunovic:
http://www.g-mk.hr/programme/Tomislav-Brajnović:-Greenhouse/95/

London Fog, 2003, digitized standard 8 film, black & white, mute, 04’05″, CSM London

Influenced by literature, films and imagination we often form certain ideas and stereotypes about places. One of the things I have expected to find in London is the London fog or smog as many people would name it. Then I realized that there is no more fog in London since the improvements were made in water system surrounding London and the use of coal and soft coal was restricted. In order to experience the fog anyway I decided to recreate it myself.  I have found a nice tea pot from the fifties on a boot sale and I filled it with Thames water and set coal on fire.
It finally resulted with the Standard 8mm film included in the installation Greenhouse. For the purpose of film shooting I have constructed a box to control smoke and steam. 

photo by John Deller

On the 2nd of July 2003. I performed a stroll-performance trough the center of London. Before I came to London and England I have expected to see gentlemen with walking sticks in the streets (influenced by books and films). But, as it often happens, the reality is different then our thoughts and expectations.
Then I decided that I am to hire a suit and take a stroll.

Wearing a suit hired at “Lipman & Sons” and with the walking stick borrowed from “James Smith & Sons Umbrellas” I have started my experience.

Video documentation was also used as a part of the Installation Greenhouse

Walk through London in a Morning Suit, 2003, video DVD, 32’32″, video by Doina Kraal & John Deller

Buddhas of Bamiyan, 2003, London, performance

Dressed as a Muslim soldier, I am tearing up images from the Bible but leaving the text.

Urban Picnic, 2000- 2011, series of picnics on different urban sites - the dump, Zaprešić, photo by Snježana Brajnović

Urban Picnic, 2000- 2011, series of picnics on different urban sites - the dump, Zaprešić, photo by Snježana Brajnović

Urban Picnic, 2000- 2011, series of picnics on different urban sites - Andy Warhol exhibition, Art Pavilion, Zagreb, photo by Sandra Vitaljic

Urban Picnic, 2000- 2011, series of picnics on different urban sites - Zrinjevac, Zagreb

Urban Picnic, 2000- 2011, series of picnics on different urban sites - Dubrovnik, photo by Marina Kelava

Urban Picnic, 2000- 2011, series of picnics on different urban sites - Novigrad, 2011

The project “Urban Picnic” started in 2000 on a car dump near Zagreb. The city was declared a natural environment, and as such, suitable for picnics (breakfasts in the nature). The table was used as a platform for meeting, friendship and discussion.

The action was repeated several times on different places.

Druid's Prayer Valse, lead pipe, mahagony postament, speaker, London, 2002

Interpolation of a president Bush speech and the Druid’s Prayer Valse melody (found on a boot sale and slowed down from 78 to 45 rpm), lead pipe, speaker in a mahagony postament.

Druid’s Prayer Valse

Train to Nowhere, 2002, From A to B, Varaždin

Train to Nowhere, 2002, From A to B, Varaždin

Train to Nowhere, 2002, From A to B, Varaždin

In the steam room at Varazdin’s train depot I found five old double-seats from a train and placed them in the centre of a huge space. On the seats, 7 slides (photographs of me and my friends sleeping) were projected from seven different projectors

God Save the King, 78 rpm record

God Save the King, old record, gramophone, speaker turned towards the wall, photographed with a vintage Kodak Brownie camera, 2002

God Save the King

“God Save the King” audio made from an old and damaged record, slowed down from 78 rpm to 45 rpm

God Save the King was used in the installation Greenhouse

London Underground News, photo by John Deller, 2002

London Underground News, 2002

London Underground News, 2002

It is almost impossible to find old newspapers in the trains of London Underground.
They are cleaned every day.
The idea was to introduce and leave old newspapers in the London Underground (2002).
It was a subversion in the everyday routine and monotony creating confusion in the mind of the reader.

Citizen's Square, 2001, LED display palced on art school building, Marshall Tito Square, Zagreb

Citizen's Square, 2001, LED display palced on art school building, Marshall Tito Square, Zagreb, detail

With this project I tried to emphasize the value of every man, regardgless of his political, artistic, historical or other deeds.
The project was supported by The Gunk Foundation for Public Art http://www.gunk.org/grants.html#brajnovic

Guilt - you have to understand your guiltiness

Penitence - it is expected of you to repent your “deeds”

Collaboration - when (if) you get out of prison you have to co-operate with the secret service

Happy End - that’s how it ended (reference to the space of the old cinema)

Grand Hotel Goli Otok, t-shirt with inscription, Goli Otok, 2001

Grand Hotel Goli Otok, t-shirt with inscription, Goli Otok, 2001

Tito, Book

Tito, Book

Tito on the wall

Dear Snjezana I am very well I am alive, SMS message, Goli Otok, 2001

Goli otok (Naked Island) is the name of an ex-communist prison situated on the island of Goli otok in the Adriatic see. In the summer of 2001 the island was visited by a group of artists with the intention to make several installations and performances.

Goli otok, 2001, four-slide projections in an old casino and cinema, four projectors, electric power generator
After making a research about the conditions in the prison after the World War II, and after having read some books and spoken with several ex-prisoners, I thought of three words that can define the prison’s politics and attitude toward the prisoners.

Guilt – you have to understand your guiltiness
Penitence – it is expected of you to repent your “deeds”
Collaboration – when (if) you get out of prison you have to co-operate with the secret service Happy End – that’s how it ended (reference to the space of the old cinema)

Grand Hotel Goli Otok
For the project ’Goli Otok 2001’ I prepared 10 t-shirts with the inscription ’Grand Hotel Goli Otok’ with five stars. The shirts were given to the participants of the project.The work was a parody on the fact that Goli Otok, a former prison, was known as one of the most cruel in the post-war Yugoslavia. Goli Otok became a paradygm for prosecution of politycal enemies.

Dear Snjezana I am very well I am alive
The prisoners of Goli Otok were allowed to send postcards from the island, but all post was checked prior to sending. It was not possible to criticize the regime or the conditions in the prison with such letters. Because of that, I have sent a SMS message from the island to my wife that everything is just fine.

Holly Structures, 2001, installation, 10 light boxes, video projection over three-sided rotating prism, SC Gallery

The prism represents a central part of the work with three statesmen from the recent Croatian history, which due to rotation of the prism appear by turns in an interval of 5 seconds. Through the prism, original documentary video films were projected showing applause of masses to these statesmen. A video projection and rotation of prisms were not synchronized so that the applause from one period will lap over the photo of the statesman from the second one and so on.

The other part of the work consisted of 10 light-boxes with ink-jet prints of enlarged photographs from newspapers and elsewhere in support of the thesis on responsibility of ecclesiastical authorities for the actions of their believers.

Bunker Hill, 2001, Pola

I placed the printed enlargement of my eyes in an old Austrian bunker near the Croatian City of Pula. The print was made to fit the opening of the bunker and it was lit from behind another element of the installation was a telescope, posed some hundred meters away, from which it was possible to monitor the bunker

South Station, 2000, Boston, site-specific installation

South Station, 2000, Boston, site-specific installation

Photographs of prohibition and restriction signs set on public benches in the South Station in Boston

Arbre Magique I, 2000, site-specific installation, slide projection, graphoscope projection, Merdith’s house, Boston, USA

Arbre Magique II, 2000, site-specific installation, slide projection, overhead projection, Summer Street, Boston, USA

Rear-view mirror is a favourite and most practical place to hang a variety of articles that bear some meaning to its owner. The thing that drew my attention the most was the mass passion for rosaries as a symbol of faith and national affiliation with the purpose to protect and bring good luck. The most common thing hanged next to rosary is a (pine-shaped) air freshener by the name “Arbre Magique” (magic tree), but there are also various other things hanging, like dolls, CDs, tiny shoes, club emblems, flags etc. During the art exchange programme with Mobius art group from Boston, I made a site-specific installation of an American car where I projected (from the inside, on the “windshield”) slides taken in Zagreb (of rosaries that hang on rear-view mirrors, as symbols of faith and national affiliation), and on the back I displayed a sentence by head projector that read “Do Not Make, Serve, Bow Down to Images.

Sette bandiere (Seven Flags), photo by Renzo Kosinozic, 2000

Old communistic red flag with the inscription Working men of all countries, unite! torn in six pieces, each piece is separately framed.

The Theatre of Crime - Pula, 2000

The Arch of Genocide - Pula, 2000

The Temple of Dead Gods - Pula, 2000

Pula a Croatian city, widely known for its remnants from “the great” Roman culture, is the place where I created a site-specific installation, at the time when cultural exchange programme with the artist group Mobius from Boston was taking place in 2000.

Three official-looking displays were placed in front of three most important Pulaís monuments: The Amphitheatre, The Triumphal Arch and The Temple of Augustus.

1. The Theatre of Crime, Placed in front of the Amphitheatre (the 1st century AD)
2. The Arch of Genocide, Placed next to the Triumphal Arch (c. 28 BC)
3. The Temple of Dead Gods, Inscription placed next to the Temple of Augustus (the early 1st century AD).

Eagle Adler, 1998, object-mobile, lead, glass, neon light

Shism-mobile, aluminium cylinder, glass cylinder, neon light, electric machine, ink-jet print, 200 cm height, 30 cm diameter, 1998

Images of the Pope and Serbian patriarch are rotating in the centre, thus creating an optical illusion