ANDREJ ĐERKOVIĆ
ImageNATION / 2002
Searching for identity 1992-2002
ARS AEVI Museum of Contemporary Arts Sarajevo
NATION (latin natio). A group of people inhabiting the same territory, having the same origins and a common language or who had common interests over a long period.
This piece is based on a board game “Man, don’t be angry” where the colors of blue red, green and yellow are associated with the four ethnic communities of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The board features four state flags, and in certain combinations resembles the one in the original game. The main idea is to find a fit between the game (as an expression of social and mental status) ad the political game, whose result in our case has been the displacement of peoples and classifications by national and religious affiliation.
"Andrej Ðerković provides sharp social critique, with out explicit theorizing. The problems of statehood and the ethnic and cultural identity of our poverty-stricken country, so vulnerable to colonization and the influence of foreign powers are embodied in a humorous and sarcastic manner through the board game".
Asja Mandić
ARS AEVI Museum of Contemporary arts Sarajevo
The work was made in 2002 for the exhibition of ARS AEVI Museum of Contemporary Art in Sarajevo called "Searching for identity 1992-2002" under the curation of Asja Mandić. A sketch of the work is in The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles in the archives of the author’s personal friend and world art historian Harald Szeemann (1933-2005).
It was also shown in 2006/07/08 in the frame of the exhibition „Recycled“ selected by Meliha Husedžinović (1945-2016) in National Gallery of Macedonia (Skopje, Macedonia), Cankarjev Dom (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Centre for Contemporary arts - Petrović Castle (Podgorica, Montenegro), King Nikola’s Castle (Nikšić, Montenegro), Galerija Velimir A. Leković (Bar, Montenegro), Collegium Artisticum (Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina), Galéria Slovenskej výtvarnej únie SVÚ (Bratislava, Slovakia) and Palais Pallfy (Vienna, Austria).
In 2008, the work was published as cover for the book “Bosna i Hercegovina / Bosnie-Herzégovine 2030” published by Courrier de la Bosnie-Herzégovine.
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995, that officially stopped the war, work was exposed on December 14th, 2020 in Studio La Boucherie in Lyon (France).