27 NOVEMBER – 11 DECEMBER
Authors: Anica Radošević Babić and Slobodan Radojković
For many years, Anica Radošević Babić and Slobodan Radojković have been two quite familiar artistic figures. Anica works from her creative nest – Novi Sad, while Slobodan creates from a craftsman’s nucleus – Niš. They have now decided to place their informal thought exchange into a new framework, by designing an exhibition, thus continuing their dialogue in front of us and together with us.
Grass. A flower. A tree. An orange peel. A self-squeezing lemon. A house. A fork. A sunny-side-up egg. A white cloud along with a black one. Rain from a cloud or ‘raining’ tomato. These are some of the recognisable elements of their compositions apparent at first glance. These silent dialogues call to us to contemplate the dangers arising from human negligence and aggression towards nature. Certain linear flows seem to unfold from artwork to artwork, indicating the pouring out of a multitude of drops – rain. Will human arrogance surpass all limits, and how can we stop the unstoppable path toward general destruction? Ever since people discovered that they can record their words, we have come across various accounts of the catastrophic floods and the disappearance of the worlds, and at the same time of the mercy granted to righteous ones.
In the Sumerian-Akkadian epic – Gilgamesh, the bright-eyed God calls out to Utnapishtim:
‘Tear down (this) house, build a ship! Give up possessions, seek thou life. Despise property and keep the soul alive. Aboard the ship take thou the seed of all living things.’
In the Book of Genesis, the God of Israel instructs Noah in a similar way. In the Indian Mahābhārata, the lord of the world, Vishnu, warns the king that in seven days and nights all three realms — Earth, Air, and Sky — will vanish in a sea of destruction. In China, the Book of Documents describes the motive for the great flood. In South America, the sacred book of the Maya, the Popol Vuh, explains why the gods resolved to annihilate the world: ‘because of their corruption, people were finished — destroyed, burned.’
We could go on listing various messages from the past, but we would soon realise that we are merely moving in circles. Each of us would have to take some responsibility for the events that keep repeating themselves. The quiet dialogue between Anica and Boba directs us toward this. The silence seeping through their works invites us to look into the mirrors of negligence and arrogance around us. A silence whose muted cry collides with the other silent cries of nature, of which we are merely guests. Human beings are powerful. We have subdued rivers by damming them. We command the sky. We command the sea. We command the earth. But do we really?
How many times have we heard: ‘This has never happened before – such a drought, such an avalanche, such a flood… This has never happened before!’ Do these compositions represent a silent warning preceding a disaster, a warning against the temptations of apparent indulgence in food and drink? Are our calm harbours really safe in an environment that appears distant to us? How large must ‘Enough’ be to count as enough? Will we finally understand through that muted cry that no one takes anything with them, except their blessings and their sins?
Zoran Todović