Report: New Voices from Serbia (at the Salon Des Arts).
by Bridgeen Gillespie.

     This event was part of the Salon Des Arts `Religion, Art and War' exhibition, and primarily of interest to comics enthusiasts due to the presence of Aleksander Zograf. Before I move on to that here's a little bit about the venue and setting. The Salon Des Arts is a charity championing the study and practice of contemporary arts. It is a rather intimate gallery, performance and meeting space based in the lobby of a Kensington hotel. It is funded by membership and donations, and the space is also available for private or corporate hire. This information may be of use to some of you artists out there. ( www.salondesarts.org ).

     On the night of the New Voices from Serbia Symposium, the Salon has two rooms in full swing. The smaller back room has a bar operating in the rear, and art- work mounted on the walls. There is a sale's desk covered in books, c.d.'s and comics, also some surreal embroidered tea cloths, called “housewives” in translation- or so the sales clerk tells me. He later turns out to be Vladimir Arsenijevic, a writer on the symposium panel, and the comic I bought, ‘Jamming with Aleksander Zograf' turns out to be Zograf's most recent project.

     The slightly bigger front room is decked out with chairs and a slide projector.

     This is where the talk is to take place. This is also where the bulk of the visual art from this exhibition is on display. I find a lot of the artwork engaging. A huge plastic cross menaces at the back of the room (‘Stealth Cross' by Laila Shawa), rockets hanging under its ‘arms' just as though it were a bomber plane. It seemed so much a part of the room I didn't notice it at first! Some of the figurative paintings, like Tamara Jovondic's screaming nudes, were very striking and not unlike some thing you'd find in contemporary painted comic artwork. There was a highly textured painting of a volcano by Lana Olagoke, and a sculptural piece by Shirley Eccles, which featured envelopes on a rack, that look more like burnt tiles. Some of them read ‘Confidential Information' or have imprints of photographs or line drawings on them.

     Some of Zograf's ‘Regards from Serbia' strips had been blown up to A3 size and mounted on the wall. One strip, dated ‘From Italy, Nov 19-28, 2000', describes an Zograf's absurd encounter with some Blackfoot Indians at an Indian reservation, where one of them, needing to wee after too much alcohol, is referring to his dick as ‘Milosovic', because it is like a dictator! But Zograf jokes with him that like Milsovic it might soon lose power.

     Of all of the artwork here, perhaps Paolo Ducasse's sculpture ‘Holy Book', (an antique bird -cage containing an open book that's been bound up with string), encapsulates best the idea of creating art in a hostile environment

     The symposium panel had four main speakers/artists. Zograf, who presented a slide show as an introduction to his work, the writers Vladimir Asenijevic, and Hajdana Baletic-who had actors read from their work, and the poet Milena Markovic who read her own.   

     Hajdana Baletic is a young semi-autobiographical writer whose work has yet to be published in English. She did mention a forthcoming play that is to be translated called ‘Dead Man's Coat', that she was hoping might be performed in London. Baletic's writing style was naturalistic and dealt with life in the fallout of a war zone. The reading given was of the first chapter of her novel.  

     Vladimir Arsenijevic (who sold me my comic earlier!) was next and he said an illustration by Zograf of a man lying on the tracks of an oncoming train, was the inspiration for his story “Ishmael”. Set in 1979 before the troubles began in Serbia. It is fondly remembered almost mythical time of glamour and avant guard punk rock, peopled by larger than life characters. The narrator is a fifteen year old boy, the only punk in a small town (he's in an imaginary punk band), much to the horror of his mother, who looks like a Hollywood movie star, and hates being called ‘Ma'. The plot unfolds as the family is reunited for the mysterious uncle ‘Ishmael's' funeral. I've no idea how you'd get hold of this story in English, but I'd love to read how it ends!

     Last up was Milena Markovic, reading her own poetry. She introduced herself by telling us how exotic her mother had been in her time, while showing us all an old black and white portrait photograph of her mother when she was young. Markovic was entertaining and funny, and gave a reading of her poetry at break neck speed. ‘You're an Angel with a Hairy Chest', was one of my favourites, due to it's delivery in some crazy piss take American accent. She was hilarious, even if at times I wasn't sure why, but every one else seemed to be in on the joke. (There were a lot of Serbs present).

     Aleksander Zograf (real name Sasa Rakezic) actually opened this evening's proceedings with a slide show and introductory talk about his work. Comic artist/writers are born story- tellers and Zograf is no exception. He started out by doing autobiographical strips like ‘Panceva' which was a strip about small town life in Serbia. Later in 1999, he did a regular postcard like strip ‘Regards from Serbia', which chronicled life in a small town that was bombed constantly due to the presence of its oil refinery. Published in Britain by Slab-o-concrete as ‘Bulletins from Serbia', this is arguably the strip that Zograf is the most famous for here.

     Not unlike Rick Veitch, another of Zograf's preoccupations is with recording dream images for the basis of a strip. But where Veitch's ‘Rare Bit Fiends' is a direct visual dream diary, Zograf describes his dream images as hypnagogic, and therefore coming from somewhere between sleep and awake. Like some sort of surreal slide show that he makes no attempt to explain, preferring to leave it in the hands of the reader.

     Although from a self -publishing background, Zograf has now risen to international status, possibly due to his news -worthy commentary on Serbia. This was political journalistic strip reportage long before Joe Sacco had though of it. He jokingly says he knew he'd made it at home when Serbian magazine ‘Galago' wanted to do a feature on him. So he send them some work in the post. Later to his surprise he was told they'd used his work on the cover, but the image on the cover was a photograph, there must be some mistake! It turns out they had used the image on the cardboard he'd sent in the envelope as packing. It was a picture from a sweetie box of a little girl holding a kitten! (You had to see the slide.) He didn't complain, as you got paid more for cover art.

     Zograf is published in the States by Fantagraphic, and was recently invited to contribute to an exhibition of international artist's impressions of American in the Museum of American Art in New York. His contribution was an autobiographical strip entitled “How I met America” summing up all that is good and bad for him about the U.S.

     It seems fitting that Zograf should do a commentary on the States. His love of Americana is evident in his style, which is at times reminiscent of American underground comix of the 60's with a German expressionist slant. Zograf loves eastern European flea markets with their weird kitsch Disney rip-offs (e.g. a Russian Mickey Mouse who is green with black gloves!) and he enjoys reworking the lost and forgotten, like old pulp sci-fi or noir from the 1950's, (see ‘Psychonaut' published by Fantagraphic).

     His most recent project, apart from Kujhinja (‘The Kitchen', a workshop for kids and artists in Serbia), is the comic I picked up on the night ‘Jamming with Aleksander Zograf'. This is a small-press comic with some very big international names. It features Jim Woodring, Robert Crumb, Peter Blegvad, and our very own Lee Kennedy, amongst others. In this collaborative effort the real world collides with fantasy and hypnagogic dream images, and fictional cartoon characters bump into autobiographical characters in the street. It's a real collector's oddity and well worth a look.

     I didn't stay on for the Q&A session. I figured due to the presence of so many non-English speakers the event might easily slip into the artists' native tongues! Seriously though, I don't know enough about Serbian events to be able to contribute anything intelligent. In saying that I'm really glad I went. The presentations were humorous and engaging, and it just goes to prove it's worth taking the time to check out some work from other countries. You just might get inspired!

“Jamming with Aleksander Zograf” is available by mail order only.
Contact zograf@panet.co.yu for more details.
(Hypnagogic Review #1-#6 also available on request).