Damir Nikšić
DAMIR NIKSIC was born in 1970 in Brezovo Polje near Brcko. He was a Bosnian conceptual artist. He graduated in 2000 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, at the Department of Painting. During the period from 2002 - 2004 he studied at the University of Arizona, in the United States of America. He received his master''s degree in 2004 in fine arts and art history. He was a member of the Maxumin group. He exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2003 in international selection. He lives and works in Sarajevo.
Some of his works are following:
• If I wasn''t Muslim, short video, 2005.
• Coronation of King Tvrtko , 2007.
• Nowhere in the world
• Anti-party
• Strato-separatism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6GdM57ZLXo
https://www.youtube.com/user/almaymun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IocyZDBnYYU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35JBStpiQeU
The exhibition "Guerrillas in Maglaj" has for the first time publicly introduced the artist''s new concept of "Bosnian theology of liberation". The exhibition consisted of two video works: "I salute you" and "The European Loser", as well as a series of five portraits painted by the author for this exhibition and especially entitled as "Guerrilla in Maglaj".
Damir Nikšić, "Guerrilla in Maglaj", AB Gallery, Maglaj
In the past month, a discussion has developed in Sarajevo art circles about how a Bosnian artist cannot actually produce a complete Bosnian artwork in almost any known medium. The reason for this assertion is very simple: the materials, i.e. the means of production, are ''foreign'', ''sided'', in a certain way alienated from the domestic artist-producer.
It is well known that there is no „Made in Bosnia and Herzegovina" movie camera, or movie tape, even though there is a Bosnian movie. There is not even a video camera manufactured in our country. There is no computer, screen, projector, television on which this video would be displayed.
In addition to the absence of musical instruments, it is perhaps little known that there are no oil, acrylic or even water crayons produced in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There is no charcoal to draw either. The only thing there is, is the legendary so called "Natron paper" on which almost all generations at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo had graduated. However, it is no longer "ours" either. The company "Natron Maglaj" was taken over by Turkish investors, as Austrian, Russian, and various other investors had taken over almost the entire industry in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who "restored" their image of Bosnia and Herzegovina from a century ago with their materials and accessories.
The result of this neo-colonial situation is not only the brutal and inhumane capitalism of transition, poor working, social and interpersonal relationships, stratification of society and growing class differences - the result is that the means of production are alienated from the free artist, that the material is artistic, artistic accessories, which are the terrain on which the freelance artist operates, has become a „foreign territory".
In such a situation, it is difficult to produce an authentic Bosnian artwork, unless the work is precisely about: the neo-colonialism of transition, the dialectical materialism of artistic materials that move from social to private ownership, (i.e. from domestic to foreign ownership) about the transition process in this European protectorate in which citizens, in their homes, in their homeland - are treated as immigrants, about a society governed by the written and unwritten laws of segregation under the pretext of integration. Only such art: socially and politically engaged art, is the authentic art of the authentic situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
For this reason, Damir Niksic came to Maglaj, to his „birthplace", to „the capital", to „the capital" of natron paper - natron paper as "symbolic free territory" of art by which the artist freely, directly, with the primordial medium, drawing - freely expresses himself, "in his own and on his own." This last „free territory" of art is now „occupied" by the so-called „foreign capital".
The only way to fight in this artistic „occupied territory" is to have a guerrilla struggle to conquer this territory ideologically / conceptually by producing art with authentic local materials and themes.
„Bosnian Theology of Liberation" came to Maglaj to set up an exhibition called „Guerrilla in Maglaj" at the AB Gallery and to officially launch a new chapter of engaged art through guerrilla struggle for free territory: for alternative socialism: Marx, Engels. Lenin and Castro with turbans, and a self-portrait as a Guantánamo prisoner with a gorilla mask.
A sketch of the "Interracial" monument - which refers to a Soviet-era Moscow monument - is a monument to workers and a collective farm worker Vera Muhina, who, in a version of Maglaj manner, instead of a farmer and a worker with sickle, formes an Afro-Asian with turban and an allegory of Europe holding a crescent, a star, and a cross. There is also the Daily - a work that represents bread / bread in the "natural" colors of natron paper - the symbol of bread of the workers, the people of Maglaj, as well as the artists themselves who, on this paper and with the help of this paper, produce new value in material, cultural, social , in artistic and intellectual terms. These works were purposefully done in the past month in Sarajevo and Maglaj for this exhibition. In addition to them, the exhibition featured two video works: "I Salute U" and "The European Loser", created in 2009 in Stockholm. The exhibition "Guerrillas in Maglaj" for the first time publicly introduced the artist''s new concept of "Bosnian theology of liberation". The exhibition consisted of two video works: "I salute you" and "The European Loser", and a series of five portraits painted by the author with the support of the gallery for this exhibition and entitled "Guerrilla in Maglaj".
Damir Niksic
