
ANDREJ ĐERKOVIĆ
The war of the roses
When Josip Broz Tito died, in ex-Yugoslavia, and especially in Bosnia, became spontaneous fashion to celebrate his 88 years by planting the same number of pine trees, carnations and of course the roses - red, as Izet Sarajlić said, as a October. What happened in the meantime with those trees and flowers, I don’t know, but we know that in Sarajevo during the war there were growing up some other roses, helped by the gardeners from the nearby hills, who send them to us with big speed and in big amounts, but without color, that was putted after, after dying and blessing its citizens. And what connection has art now, which cannot, as we know, even if it wants, to be so terrify as a reality? Well, it can, when there is a clear idea, concept, as it’s sad by Andrej Ðerković, the author of the exhibition, who put together two different periods of its life and - let me to paraphrase one event from the English history - the war of roses. Famous iconography from the commemorating of Tito’s birthdays, 88 roses, artist reformulated in a way that he multiplied photographs of the same number od sarajevan roses from the ground and he put them on 88 metal sticks which are in two wood palettes and in between on the floor it is written with the same shape and the size like on the tomb in the House of Flowers: JOSIP BROZ TITO 1892-1980.
Of course, all that will stay on the level of ironical and even worse, cynical joke, if this from one side doesn’t have a credits in contemporary historical context, and from the other, in artistic realization and the answer - how something was done? With credits.
Emir Dragulj (DANI, Sarajevo, June 2000)