ANDREJ ĐERKOVIĆ
My own private Sarajevo / 1997-2025
Safet Suljević x Andrej Ðerković
Olympic Museum Sarajevo
In September 1997, in the ruins of the 1984 Winter Olimpics Museum, as part of the accompanying program of the Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) and under the patronage of the Embassy of the Swiss Confederation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo artist Andrej Đerković set up his exhibition entitled "My own private Sarajevo". The exhibition consisted of interventions in the given space that aimed to show our feelings through the anomalies of today's society, as well as the unreasonable attitude of the world and European society towards Sarajevo during the siege. The given space, the ruined Olympic Museum, was chosen for its historical and architectural symbolism, which made it an artillery target during the siege, which coincided with the theme of the art installations. This original and ephemeral exhibition it was documented through the documentary film named after the exhibition "My own private Sarajevo” (Didier Dematons, France, 1998), which is shown on the screen during this new exhibition and in which, in addition to the peculiar view of this unique artist, the view of an entire youth that looked to the future with optimism in spite of everything, was also shown.
Entering the year in which the Sarajevo Olympic Museum will celebrate the fifth anniversary of its rebirth, the photographs of Đerković's works from the exhibition at that time are now standing in the places where they were placed during the premiere exhibition in 1997. The photographs were taken by Safet Suljević, a photojournalist of the Bosnian magazine DANI and Đerković’s close colleague and friend, who tragically lost his life a few days later in a traffic accident near Mostar. With this staging in the Olympic Museum, Safet Suljević's photographs are given archival status, both through the retrospective of the art exhibition and through the retrospection of the destruction and reconstruction of Villa Mandić, where the museum is located.
As one of Sarajevo's greatest photographic talents, Safet Suljević (1967-1997) was professionally engaged in photography for seven years until his tragic death, working for DANI magazine and collaborating with several national and international media. He was buried at the Alifakovac cemetery in Sarajevo. Due to his preference for details, his redaction colleague and essayist Nerzuk Ćurak characterized him as a "master of Bosnian naturalism". This is Safet's second exhibition, after the exhibition "Last night on Earth", which was organized posthumously by Andrej Đerković in the Buybook bookstore in 2000, with selected photos from two films, in which Safet photographed the legendary concert of the Irish group U2 at the Koševo Olympic Stadium, shortly before his death. One photograph from that cycle was donated to the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
