Deutsches Historisches Museum - Verf�hrung Freiheit. Kunst in Europa seit 1945 - Blog

The four of us – Irene, from the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg, Monika and Ulrike, from Berlin and I, from London – arrived in Sarajevo one evening at the end of the summer. What a contrast! The town straddles the River Miljacka, at the head of a lush green valley, dominated by the sheer slopes of the Dinaric Alps, from which the besieging Yugoslav army could watch every movement of people or equipment during those murderous months and years of the siege, lasting from 1992 to 1995.

This was not my first visit to Sarajevo, though it was the first for my colleagues. I had been there soon after the War at the initiation of the enterprising initiative Ars Aevi and its inspirational founder, Enver Hadžiomerspáhić, and returned there several times afterwards, usually at Enver’s instigation. The first time round, it was impossible to escape the visual evidence of the ravages of war. Only the recently reopened Holiday Inn, which had served as the headquarters of the international press until, and after, being half destroyed by shelling, was fully restored and open for business; few other establishments were functioning normally, though the cafe and club life was booming and there was an air of hope among the young people who had returned home, in search of work and a new life.

Many years on and several visits later, a certain kind of normality seemed to have been resumed. Buildings had been restored, including the old Turkish quarter, with its picturesque low wooden houses; public buildings had been rebuilt, though not always to the highest specifications; and the visible presence of UNIFOR, with its mixture of Italian, British, Turkish, etc. troops had gone, though no further than back to the barracks. Yet nothing was as it seemed – or rather everything was at it seemed, and nothing was quite real. Like Alice in Wonderland, we felt we might just as well have fallen down a hole into a different world, where things were out of proportion and resisted the laws of gravity. A certain lassitude had taken over, and a sense of resignation. Unemployment had become a statistic (was it 60 per cent of young people?), rather than a challenge, and that went for pretty much everything see, including the now invisible military presence that held the constitution in place, in a state of suspension.

Institutions here seem to be fatally weak. What was to be made of the present constitution, intended as a transitional arrangement and now seemingly immutable? Everything that happens in the country (or doesn’t) is based on the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH), aka the Dayton Agreement, of 1995, whose aim it was to prepare the way for a normally functioning sovereign state, which would enable the different ethnic groups (Serbs, Croats and Bosnians) and people of different faiths (Orthodox and Catholic Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc.) to live together again, in a measure of harmony.

The NATO-led IFOR (Implementation Force) was set up in 1995 to implement the peace on the ground, and the Office of the High Representative (OHR) was established in the same year, to oversee the civilian implementation of the Dayton Agreement. To judge from the analysis of the situation we were given by one of the country’s leading constitutional lawyers and by our own observations, the otherwise informative internet site for the entry on the Dayton Agreement seems to be wildly over-optimistic, in its assessment of the ways in which the State of B. and H. and its two ‘Entities’ are evolving towards normal functionality. Corruption and political shenanigans capture the headlines, but the overwhelming impression is one of a creeping paralysis of the institutions of state, accompanied by private disillusionment. The nub of the problem seems to be the unique character of the Dayton Agreement. Highly unusually, it incorporates into its very fabric the new constitution of the previous state, with the result that it is impossible to change the terms of the constitution without changing those of the Peace Agreement on which it is based.

The constitutional court has been able to alter one or two matters of detail, but basically it would require the almost imaginable, unanimous, agreement of the three ethnic (‘political’) leaders, plus that of all the different religious leaders, to force a bill of reform through parliament. Ultimate power still rests with the High Representative, who would be able, in theory, to rule B. and H. in proconsular fashion, but we were told that anything of this kind would belong to the realm of science fiction and that none of the foreign upholders of the Dayton Agreement, including the EU and agencies such as UNESCO, has shown the slightest inclination to assert their authority in a meaningful way.

So what of the situation, as we found it? At the official level, it was pretty desperate. The federal government and entities now seem to be working, after a fashion, but the State had been without a government for many months, as the two winning parties in the recent elections – the Social Democrats and a Bosniak party – had been unable to agree on the division of power, and the Croats felt excluded. In the absence of state ministries for cultural, educational and scientific affairs, all these matters were being picked up by the ‘Civil Affairs Department’ and  passed down the line to the  two Entities, for ‘consultation’ (i.e. kicked into the long grass!).

At an institutional level, then? – Pretty much the same story:

At the National Gallery, the long-standing and widely respected director had retired a couple of months earlier and not been replaced. It had not been possible to advertise the post, or appoint any one to it, as the Gallery was without a Board to supervise the process, in the absence of a new government, to appoint it. None of the 14 members of staff at the museum had been paid for the last 8 months, and the Gallery was preparing to close its doors indefinitely to the public, from the day after our visit, on 1 September 2010. We were told that this would set the precedent for the closure of the much larger National Museum, followed by that of the other six or seven ‘national’ institutions and, depressingly, this is exactly what seems to be happening: in early October this year, the closure of the museum was announced after 124 years, as a result of the lack of funding and bickering between the political different parties.

Despite the dire lack of faculties, the National Gallery of B. and H (the picture gallery, as distinct from the far larger Museum) has a significant regional art collection and had been successful, in recent times, in effecting emergency structural repairs and organising the occasional exhibition, sometimes with a catalogue, with the help of a foreign cultural agency, such as Pro Helvetia.. In better days, the Gallery could count on attracting c. 20,000 visitors a year, including a high proportion of young people. The current acting director and her staff had the air of being professional and highly motivated, though they have absolutely no financial resources and cannot even apply for any from outside, without a legally constituted Board, or an established Director.

At Ars Aevi, we heard a very similar tale, except that this is a private foundation (legal status unclear) that was beginning to attract resources from successive governments, until the funding dried up a couple of years ago. Ars Aevi is, effectively, a remarkable collection of collections of contemporary art, solicited from international artists by the directors of foreign institutions and donated to Sarajevo. It has been given a well situated plot of land near the university and the internationally renowned architect, Renzo Piano, has designed a footbridge linking this to the university and drawn up plans for a pavilion to house the collection. For the past ten years, the foundation had been gathering strength and support from the international community, under the leadership of its founder, Enver Hadziomerspáhič and its part-time director.

We do not yet know the shape or scale of the collaboration we plan with Sarajevo, but are determined to organise something of substance – ideally, in collaboration with the resuscitated National Gallery, as a way of recognising its pre-eminent status, in a country starved of stable institutions with a professional profile, though we  should also most definitely like to include publicly recognised institutions, such as Ars Aevi and private  foundations, such as the Soros Foundation/Open Society Network, which have been doing courageous work in the region over the last fifteen years, of so. The National Gallery would ideally like to be able to show a selection of work from one or two chapters from our exhibition, ‘The Desire for Freedom: Art in Europe since 1945’ We do not yet know which they may have in mind, but it would scarcely seem appropriate to focus on the opening or closing chapters - on ‘The Court of Reason’ or ‘The World in our Heads’! Even ’99 Cent’ would seem inappropriate for all except the favoured few, who have taken their ransom of Fools’ Gold.

Perhaps ‘The Reality of Politics’ would be more fitting or, better still, ‘Journey into Wonderland’ – or even a combination of the two! Even though there is no possibility of funding from the Bosnian side, we are confident of being able to do something, with the aid of the Council of Europe and the grant from the European Commission. And there’s even the prospect of showing some top class international art in a context that paradoxically stands out for the dynamism of its contemporary art scene!

We should love to hear what you think of this, and whether any of you have first-hand experience of this fascinating, but tragic region. Do write and let us know!

- Henry