Interview

What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?

“I was extremely fortunate to have parents who were willing to ensure that I have constant exposure to all sorts of artistic mediums. I was taken to art exhibitions, theater plays, cinema and festivals multiple times a week. My mom, who had also attended the Academy of Fine Arts, started teaching me different drawing, painting and sculpting mediums when I was several months old, and tracked and encouraged the entire process in later years. I was also allowed to pursue any area that interested me, from classical ballet to piano playing.
I absolutely dread the hypothetical scenario in which I would not have been exposed to all that. I consider such a process to be something every person needs to go through in order to form good perception and useful analytical skills as much as possible in later life. I have come to realize that almost no one I know had that opportunity during childhood. From a very early age I knew I wanted to work in art mediums, so it was natural for me to follow the elementary schooling with art school education and the Art Academy program afterwards.”

What inspires you most?

“I’m fascinated by systems and concepts in general, and I’m especially drawn toward analysis of the systems constructed by society and humans as a species. I have utmost certainty that if we lived in a perfect world, I would have the same fascination with research of the layered systems and interactions that would govern such a perfect society and culture. However, as we live in a world that has always been a horrendous mess, sinking ever deeper into the abyss of its own destruction, I am left with the opportunity to research our collective stupidity, pointlessness and absence of emotional intelligence. I must say, it is an equally unending and opulent field of inspiration!
The artificial stages and bubbles that people construct around themselves individually and on a global scale, mistaken for nonexistent paradigms such as ‘reality’ or ‘normality’, are great inspirational sources for thinking and working. At the same time, they are abnormally horrific in their destruction of individuals who blindly pursue them, and intricately fascinating in the way they are formed.”

What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?

“I try to avoid pursuing any specific theme, as I find the content of an artwork to be completely irrelevant. It’s interesting that your question mentions themes of an artwork and message of an artwork as basically one and the same. I find those two to be completely different things. The message of an artwork comes from the idea, if the communication of the artwork is successfully executed, of course. That idea can be represented through any content or theme whatsoever. Rebellious messages of self-awakening can be expressed through romanticized theme and content consisting of a man standing on top of a foggy mountain, or through a urinal turned upside down, or through content involving a person yelling in a full square. So if my ideas and messages are designed well enough, and if I execute them well enough through any sort of theme or content, that is a success. Naturally, that rarely happens. The ideas and messages I pursue most are closely connected with my previously mentioned inspirations.
At this stage of my work, I’m mostly preoccupied with deconstruction of social systems by which we lead our daily lives, and with the attempts to underline and emphasize their characteristics as much as I can. I can see that most people either willingly or obliviously allow themselves to vanish completely inside such systems. I am very interested in testing if it’s possible to magnify those characteristics so much so that they would be far more poisonous than they already are, and that this would perhaps help someone to spit them out.”

How would you describe your work?

“That is a question I believe no artist should be asked. Even with maximum concentration and effort to be as objective and organized in thought as I can, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to provide as good and precise an answer as the one that the audience would give. Therefore, such a question should always be asked of the audience, not the author. If I could describe my work in words as well as the work does for itself, then I would not create it. Since people sometimes run away or cry when I express my views, I express them through artwork, and people start laughing, which is more than I could ever ask for.”

Which artists influence you most?

“I could split those influences into two qualities that I respect deeply. The first is universal ability, popularized by the Renaissance archetype of ‘uomo universalis’, but which was characteristic of some other people outside of that era as well. Human beings must never stop accumulating knowledge and information, and must never stop learning new abilities. If they are combined to influence all other work of an individual, no matter how trivial, even better. I believe that every human being has an obligation to invest himself into research of a multitude of areas and practices. Only then can he achieve the vision and perception that all of them are governed by through exactly the same rules and methods. That is why I find most of the hybrid artist/scientist/anthropologist personas of the past very influential.
The second quality is the ability to not shy away from exposing stupidity and duplicity of the system for the sake of maintaining the aura of ‘politeness’. That is the easy way, but never the right way. There are several contemporary artists with such a quality, but at this moment I would mention Maurizio Cattelan and Banksy as some of the influences dear to me.”

What is your creative process like?

“In the technical, corporeal area of a process, I tend to combine as many techniques and mediums as I can. When I produce performance art, I try to incorporate writing, acting or classical stage movement techniques, as I consider a multitude of influences and mediums to be of vital importance in an artwork. I try to position myself in situations where I’m forced to draw from various knowledge bases that I have formed, and from various techniques I use to create combined artwork. Rarely am I working with just a single medium.
As for the conceptual part of a process, I must admit it is always extremely long. Sometimes it takes years of thinking about a certain concept or artwork. The process involves taking breaks from thinking about it in order to patiently arrive at the point where, through allowing my mind to slowly balance the entire thing, I find the work ready for production. Improvisation is important, but for oneself and for private mind and technique workout which is necessary for any type of development. However, I am against serving any type of improvisation intentionally to the audience, and I certainly don’t approve of the dogma that improvisation in artwork is a successful way to communicate with the audience. It takes some hard thinking and planning to speak meaningful words with clarity and strength in them. Any other type of communication, art communication included, is no exception.”

What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?

“An artist’s role in society is, as the question itself implies, a perceived social construct. It does not exist as a viable concept on its own. There is no defined artist’s role any more than there is a defined role of a parent or of a monarch. The effort to define it would yield extremely limited results that would not function outside a very narrow collective perception area. The only role that exists and has ever existed is the role of a human, from which all other perceived roles spring out. If the role of a human is played badly, the same person cannot play some other sociological role virtuously.
Creativity or technical ability is not enough for an artist to be an artist, as love for a child in itself is not enough to create a good parent, or hereditary succession to create a great monarch. The obligation of a human being is to constantly dismantle and rearrange oneself, analyzing every part in the process. To understand how each part influences the others and how it’s connected with one's surroundings. That means that change must be embraced as a constant state.
Above all, the human being is obligated to speak the truth, no matter how it is received. Therefore, the obligation of an artist in society, if you insist, is not to deliver pleasure to the audience, or any enjoyable experience per se. It is only to show the truth. To some people in the audience that will be the most pleasurable experience, and to some it will be very painful indeed. Therefore, it is unwise to attempt to define what an artist’s role is at any point either in history or at present. The most successful and impactful artists were, after all, only those who spoke the truth, no matter the cost.”

Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?

“The performance piece that is dearest to me, performed at different venues in Zagreb, Croatia over the last few years, is the performance titled ‘Close Encounters’. It consists of an interactive panel through which the audience could choose the way in which they wanted to interact with me as I was separated from them and behind the panel. They could choose the option to be hugged through thick fabric and foam sleeves that I would put my arms through, or they could choose to have their dog blessed through similar sleeves. They also had the option to choose to see me through a one-way looking glass, or to receive a paper note with the signature ‘Artist’ written along a fake wise proverb, presented as a genuine piece of wisdom.
The other work I had tremendous fun with was created during the two months of the first global COVID lockdown in 2020. For the first time ever, I was in my apartment for a few months with all activities suspended, except grocery shopping. So I created a character of a horrendously obnoxious and vile woke online influencer who starts a two-month world tour, oblivious of the current global situation. The photo montages in which the only real element was my face were posted regularly on my social profiles, along with accompanying textual descriptions. Throughout this performance, I answered all the comments below the posts in the persona’s character. The work was displayed in Zagreb in 2020, and is also part of the international virtual exhibition #365daysafter.”