I can state the following: I decided to make the painting "Signing of the Declaration on the Unification of Western Herzegovina and Popvo Polje with the Republic of Croatia (Wer hat das Bier bestellt?)" because I was frustrated by
A) the fact that the Croatian media are constantly pumping the country's mental life full with politics – thus creating the impression, that nothing else exists outside the paths of the so-called political and other "celebrities" – which leaves very little space for such a thing as painting, except, maybe, when dealing with the price of a certain piece or the question which artist is the protégé of which "celebrity"
B) the fact that, as I have noticed, the easiest way, in which a person coming from a not really influential corner of the world, such as Croatia, can be admitted to the International Court of Art, is to embrace the Court's rules of political correctness and – adopting the Court's outlook on this part of the world – take up the topic of nationalism that resulted in war, or of the mafia-like structures that emerged during the transition and bagged public property, or of the position in which persons who are "different" found themselves in this not-yet-civil society, or of the "authentic positive values" of the "preceding" times, providing that he does not do this in the medium of painting, because being an old medium, it is always allied with the conservative powers in society
and also because
C) in the works done in recent years, I have particularly enjoyed insisting on "representation" which, according to the established fact that painting is an old medium, arouses memories in the beholder, associations to similar representations he has seen before, and in this way creates a space between the picture that we see and the one we carry in our memory, which gives the painting a new, "third" dimension emerging beyond the painted object
D) I wanted to make a representative portrait of "common people", of my friends in Berlin.
"The Making Of"
We came together for the first time in my studio, at the beginning of November 2007. It was not easy to explain to everybody what exactly it was that I wanted, and I was not so sure about it either. I hoped, that the painting would somehow emerge from the time we spent together. How it came about is very well described by the proverb "In the beginning, there was chaos". After some two months, the composition had crystallized. It was fun, extremely loud, and the winter of 2007/08 passed quickly in good vibrations. I am indefinitely grateful to all who have participated in this 280×480 cm sized joke. I began painting in early spring of 2008. Almost a year after our initial meeting, the painting is nearly finished.
