Return All Their Books, 2016/2024
Gouache and black tee on paper
32 x 23 cm

The initial version of this work was done in 2016 but was exhibited for the first time only in 2023 at the show “On the New” at Belvedere 21, Vienna, as part of the contribution curated by the artist-run space hoast. The depicted text is inspired by a poster by Goran Trbuljak, which was featured in a propagandistic booklet produced by the Croatian Union of Artists during the Balkan War. In my piece, I employ a strategy of affirmation, adapting a sentence originally associated with Serbian literature to other European nations. Emerging in the context of another war, namely the Russo-Ukrainian war, the graphic work illustrates that the calls for the purification of culture, which we often hear nowadays, are not unique and questions the absurdity of such claims. The renewed version of the piece, according to the updated names of some countries, was made for the project by Vlatka Horvat, “By the Means at Hand,” in the Croatian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale.

Exhibition view: Vlatka Horvat, By the Means at Hand, Croatian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2024. Photography by Hugo Glendinning

Exhibition views: On the New, Part 3, Belvedere 21. Photography by Wolfgang Obermair