An Enthralling Conversation with Braco Dimitrijević

Braco Dimitrijević is an internationally renowned Bosnian conceptual artist. His works are held in the collection of the Tate Gallery, MoMA Museum of Modern Art New York, The Centre Pompidou, and among eighty collections around the globe. I got the honor to discuss with Braco about what he is most fond of in his career, what he finds appealing about documenting people, and how art has changed and shaped his life.

UZOMAH: How does art allow you access to the type of freedom where you can express your individuality through art? 

BRACO: Art per se should not have any limits. For me, any medium of expression, as well as an exhibition venue, is equally important. Along with having shows in museums and galleries, I created alternative exhibition spaces, and I made exhibitions in the street, zoo, prehistoric cave. I expressed this attitude in my statement “Louvre is my Studio Street is my Museum”.

U: What is a question you wish a person visiting your art in a gallery would ask about your pieces and why?

B: Art is a cognitive process by its nature. If a visitor of a gallery doesn’t have any questions confronted with a work of art, it means that the exhibition or artwork has failed.  I like having many questions asked and I believe that there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.

Triptychos post Historicus With Modigliani, The Tate Gallery London 1978-85

Collection Tate Gallery

U: When you look back on your career as an artist what event or moments are you most fond of?

B: Always the most exciting moments are when I made breakthroughs when I changed conventions hundreds of years old. When I started exhibiting giant portraits of casual passers-by on facades and billboards when no other artist was interested in using public space in that way. 

When I made installations in the museum with original master paintings to create my work “Triptychos Post Historicus” it was unprecedented practice. Already showing contemporary art in the context of old collections was a big breakthrough. For instance, my show at the Tate Gallery 1985 included Turner, Cezanne, Modigliani, Malevich, Derain from the Tate collection. That practice opened many possibilities for both artists and curators later and changed the concept of evolutionary theory applied to art history. Another rupture was confronting living animals with work of art, making a more harmonious relationship between culture and nature.

Triptychos post Historicus With Boticelli, The Louvre, Paris 1996

U: How important was writing Tractatus Post Historicus to how you created artwork? What was the inspiration behind writing it?

B: I coined the term Post-History and published my book “Tractatus Post Historicus'' in 1976. It was before Charles Jencks used the term PostModernism in architectural theory. Already in 1969 my idea that:” There are no mistakes IN history, the whole history is a mistake” led me to believe that history is a mutilated image of the past. So I started promoting casual passer-by instead of historical figures.

The book provided a theoretical background for my work and advocates the coexistence of a plurality of styles and concepts at the same moment, whilst art history denies it. I used to say that one second of Post historic time is a lot more complex than what is written in history books.

U: Did anyone not want their picture taken? How did you convince them to take a picture? 

B: In my 50 years old practice it happened only a few times. People feel that using outdoor space for creating and exhibiting is helping the democratization of art and they are willing to collaborate. Once a man from Holland wanted to be given his large photo to use it as a sail on a raft to cross the Atlantic.

Memories of childhood, 1983  Collection Kunstmuseum Bern

U: You have been painting and creating since a young age, even appearing on TV.  What were some milestones as an artist you reached that stand out as moments of where you truly felt you were an artist?

B: I had my first show at the age of ten with fifty oil paintings. A documentary about me as a child prodigy was made and shown in cinemas. It made me reflect on the role of the media in art and I stopped painting. In that period I was competing in Alpine skiing and made art only occasionally. After a ten-year break, I started showing again in the gallery and also on the street willing to communicate with all.

The milestone could be the “Flag of the World” from 1963 when I replaced the national flag on my boat with a cloth for cleaning paintbrushes. But also “Accidental Sculpture” from 1968 or “Casual passer-by” from 1969. Another breakpoint was when I incorporated the original Kandinsky painting from Nationalgalerie in Berlin in my work in 1976.

U: In terms of art criticism, do you think as an artist there is any way of ranking or coding an artist to a certain stage or category in an artist’s career?

B: Definitely, it is not possible. Sometimes there is only one painting or one work by an artist which is worth more than a thousand others. Ranking can be applied to the material world but not to art which is a metaphysical category. Categorization is historic disciplines that do not correspond to real-life or the life’s reflection - art.

Flag of the world, 1963 Courtesy Galerie Daniel Marzona, Berlin

U: What do you think of the young artists today?  Is there any change from when you were first starting?

B:  Art changes its forms but not its soul. Like in any other generation of artists, there are thinkers and there are decorators. Today young artists are under high pressure in the art market and more than ever art is identified with the art market. But nevertheless, art will survive because it is an existential activity and a need of the thinking man.

Casual Passer-by I met at 3.42 , New York 1988 Private Collection New York

U: What was the artistic appeal behind creating art out of people you meet on the street?

B:  ‘Casual passer-by’ is a metaphor for another concept or knowledge lost in history. I have a utopian belief that every man/woman is a genius until he/she proves differently. Every time I meet a person on the street I hope I will be meeting Leonardo.

Solo show at Tate Gallery 1985

U: How has creating art, changed and shaped your life?

B: Regardless of how complicated it can be, it was always great fulfillment to see realized the images I have in my imagination. I belong to those who believe in their dreams and are ready to struggle for them. Luckily this world needs truth defined by art.

For more information about Braco’s artwork please visit his website.