ISTRA – PLACE OF TRANSFER
In fine art, as well as in the other arts, the reproduction is more or less a faithful imitation of some other painting which is defined as original. The reproduction is always made to acquire artistic ability as substitution for the original, or made as a falsification. These cases are called trivial actions and they do not understand serious treatment theories, except in the case which is mentioned by Walter Benjamin, when the fundamental question is asked: whether copying Mondrian produces an abstract painting? Do we see the original and the reproduction? It is possible to say that such a reproduction is a very realistic painting and not an abstract as the original.
If we ask the question, according to Benjamin, whether the author of reproduction is an author, and by so doing until in the precise moment we ought to ask the question of what is the faith of those who manufacture the reproductions and what is their status in the society and, later, in the history of art alone? Do they belong to art history?
This introduction has for aim to relax the written text and set free the pretensions of the reader to treat the author who is the theme of this text as original. The suggestion in this introduction is in the existence of a whole corpus of artists who make art, based on well-known bases of a theory, and they, by doing so, build very successful careers. Therefore, they copy! That always happens in societies which do not have developed clear system of theoretical analysis, and societies which have not constituted their local history of art, based on their own original masterpieces. Based on the previously known inert ion in their environment, they find artists who resemble a certain masterpiece and great name of art. There are many such cases and the communality between them is that the ex-Yugoslav scene contains in all regions original copies of the original art, as for example, the whole Croatian and Serbian modern period from the beginning of the century originated on the seeking of resemblance with great streams which were taking place in France, Germany or Italy. Things start to become dramatic at the beginning of the 1980s, when the whole artistic space starts to depict in the
trans - avangard style, promoted by Akile Bonito Oliva at the Biennale in Venice, i.e., the fine art of the new expressionism or new painting becomes the dominant style in fine art. In that context, a great number of copies of the original are being adopted by critics as authentic art without any serious discussion about the roots of such iconography. The peak of formalism in fine art becomes through the lack of theoretical discourse, historically important national art. This is the case from which a good author comes, such as in works of Mileta Prodanović, Tahir Lušić, Nada Alvanja and others.
This sort of introduction is necessary to renew some memories on the period of the 1990s, when there has been the overlapping of political determinants and cultural models in art centers Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Novi Sad…Yugoslavia was offered a mild influence in European integration through a specific influenceof the esthetic of the original and copying such iconography from local artist. The motives have been various, and the faith of these actors are today determined. Burhan Hadžialjević Bura and his faith, of an artist living in the “countryside” of Istra, on the margin of serious artistic systems can nowadays be considered only in the mention context, i.e., can be labeled as absolutely original attitude of leaving the artistic scene. All of this is in function of consistent, almost analytical principles of conservation of the personal original existence in the name of ethics and not art piece. Therefore, Bura does not insist on formal plastic values of a piece (painting, object…), but rather strives to construct a network of tautological like-minded persons, who construct the art, based on ethical principles. What has, therefore, happened with the career of the artist Hadžialjević Burhan, who has build a great career, with his power of reproducing all he sees, reads and discovers, and who has given up for the sake of good will isolation or discrete presence on the scene? Bura has chosen in the middle of the 1990s a very risky position of artist who has not accepted to fall into any historical trap. He has stayed out of this. He has been warning about a consecutive order of historical traps, which were about to, in the beginning of the 1990s, to end in dramatic wars. Wars have threatened everything and have become pragmatic in original historical fact.
In the middle of the 1990s, Bura, in the village of Marušići, starts with a discrete manufacture of archetypical works through which he is confronting his past with the deconstruction of everything that has esthetic features, and transforming these features into appropriate subjects which we can not call installations, object, sculptures… but rather to which we can give a preliminary title – discursive trash! Bura is leaving his talent, i.e., he is becoming indifferent towards esthetic and formal content of the masterpiece. This is a fundamental decision for the artist; leave the field of esthetics and work on the de-subjectivity of art.
This text now seeks for greater explanations, elaboration of the current positions of the artist Burhan Hadžialjević Bura. Therefore, this text with its allegorical techniques of reading the past and future, is demonstrating that there is word of a precious artist, crucial to his environment, to the place where he lives, and where he gathers and the energy with which we approach him. This is the preciousness with which Bura is justifying his position of forgotten artist who has not agreed esthetic neocolonialism which rules in many parts of the artistic scene. We, who come to him in Istra from a different regions, have our motives; we are living our environments in seeking the energy with which would justify the past time.With such accumulation of energies we are reconstructing the most important form of culture – art.
It is precisely the suggestion of Eugene Borowski in the text “The glove is thrown, that elaborates, in an essential way, about the individual filing of belonging in space, place in which Bura exists, struggles and their intertwining. Bura does not agree to any form of “ghettoize-ation”, but he rather warns dramatically and alarmingly about the consequences which can be caused by a wrong perception of an art masterpiece. He puts in the center of the intertwining the masterpiece, action or attitude which are discretely hidden in the mighty symbolic of a white glove which he throws at the center alone of the interaction! With this work Bura is defining himself as an artist, politician, anthropologist, manufacturer, philosopher, i.e., he is becoming, with this work, an artist who is using relational esthetics. He is founding a necessary form of communication and is challenging thinking.
With twenty years of discrete behavior Bura is suggesting to us that the model of social interaction should be declared an art form, while the objects which are produced by such form of social interaction should not be treated as a central form of art! Treating the relations between real life and its correlated tools such as are sometimes paintings, the spaces of art galleries, objects; he is suggesting a discrete contract which everyone can find in social interaction. Bura is trying to faithfully construct a space(gallery) as a specific place of social interaction where talk which develops has greater function than the form or esthetic of art piece. He knows that every piece has been made from one and the same material as well as social relations and that it is separated from other forms of human activity through the power of transparence. All his works, paintings, installations, drawings, objects, performances are put aside, while he is putting on the space reserved for the art piece, the guest, inscribing him/her in the art piece.
I am coming to Istra because of such a powerful role of Burhan Hadžialjević Bura, because of white vine, white gloves and friends which I have not lost during all this years. Friends, that have not let me copy all of which the period of the dirty time has created behind me and I have stayed faithful to original artists from former cultural spaces. Bura is a point of reference and Istra the place of transfer of nurtured energies!
Živko Grozdanić, Vršac, 2007