part I

part II

19:45, or so

vlidi: Suddenly and silently, the cordon was split apart and police took the positions alongside the pavement. We were free to pass this 100 meters towards the gallery, robocops now resembling two rows of pillars, which gave the situation almost the ceremonial flavour.
There, a few dozen of people, mostly young and most of who I didn't knew from before, were standing in front of several black leather jackets blocking the entrance. Trying to enter the gallery, we were told that they are from the police and that we can not be allowed in the premises, but it wasn't really clear why. They were not really keen to discuss the details about what happened inside, why we can not enter now, and when it would be possible. A noise from the demonstrations upstreet was still audible (see the 19:00 entry), so I guess "the area was not being secured" yet. There I met with Ana Nikitovic, a curator and producer who works with MOCAB, with whom we had plans to make a small celebration of Chinese New Year tonight. Madamme Vesic finally made her grand appearance exiting from taxi right in front of the gallery. After the small chat with friends outside, we decided that I'm very cold and wet and still feverish, and that we will need to reassess the situation, so we dropped by my friends place several meters from the gallery, to rest a bit and concentrate on what we do next.

jelena: I'm seeing the group of my colleagues in a front of the gallery entrance: theorists Branimir Stojanovic, Milos Cvorovic, Svebor Midzic, curator Dejan Sretenovic, activist Nebojsa Milikic, architect Dubravka Sekulic.... Branislav Dimitrijevic is standing a little bit aside and giving interview to a journalist. Ana Nikitovic is reporting about the recent development to her boyfriend presently in Amsterdam, artist Bojan Fajfric. Nobody is allowed to enter the gallery, although everything seems to be allegedly finished at the moment: police cordons have moved from the stage of "civic protection", supporters of Obraz went home to recover for the upcoming media aftermath [right-wing activists in Serbia are minimum 10 times quicker and more persistent than left-wing activists, so thousands of comments on blogs and forums could be expected tomorrow...]. The only ones left were 'us': members of art community, regular visitors of Kontekst gallery or 'supporters of Albanian terrorism' and 'fighters for Kosovo independence', depends on the perspective of observation. What is there left to do? A small crowd in the rain exchanged the silent glimpses, still containing remnants of the slowly fading street tension, mixed with the harsh opinion-in-announcement and a will to debate collectively about the situation for hours. In such, seemingly overtly-serious situations I usually get the syndrome of 'the laughter attack on the funeral'. I'm thinking about the dimensions of the stone that the man who started a mess in the gallery had smuggled in. I'm also thinking about the logic of the police "civic protection": no excess is allowed to the casual gallery public, but people carrying stones are cordially invited to come.

The exhibition 'Exception' is definitely closed. Two unidentified persons destroyed the artwork "Face to face" by Dren Maliqi, and one mother carrying two children, each in one hand, have spited at the torn image laying on the floor. Curators are quite stressed because of the aggression and the accompanying "events".

Ten minutes before leaving the 'crime scene' I'm spending with Milica, in conversation about blogging. She is a VIP blogger of B92 (go to blog.b92.net and search for Milica Tomic - the links are not working. The blog is in Serbian, but in her latest entry you can find a lot of images of the artworks from the exhibition), and she creates and moderates passionate discussions about politics and contemporary art there. Milica mentions Walter Benjamin's text "Hashish in Marseilles" (1932) as the good metaphor for the position of blogger, who is at the same time a witness and a judge, personal impression maker and harsh critic. I completely agree…

20:00 - 20:30

Closed session. Not for public.

20:30

vlidi: After some warming up and regrouping, the three of us blitzkrieged the leatherjackets blocking the entrance to the gallery. Jelena resolutely stated her name, as if it was the name that should be recognizable by anybody, and said that she works with the people from the gallery and that she wants to get in now, Ana just smiled, and me, I just acted as their own escort. The boss of the leatherjackets went to fetch one of the organizers of the exhibition, and in no time we were in. Inside, immediately you could feel this atmosphere of a cautious hysteria, which sometimes could be misread as calmness. People from the gallery, organizers, curators and their friends and colleagues, they all walked around and spoke a lot, trying not to raise the tone. A lot more of black leatherjackets were still inside, somehow aware of the fact that their appearance here is pretty much out of place. In the chamber immediately to the right the poster of Adam Jashari, a part of work "Face to face" by Dren Maliqi, looked at us from the floor, torn in several pieces. I remembered the portrait of Legija proudly standing in front of the cordon, and was thinking if this should be interpreted as that this round of the battle of images is "won" by his image. Another poster and the part of the same work, depicting Elvis Presley pulling out a gun, was still firmly standing on the gallery wall. Or was it Elvis who won, somehow? Besides the horizontal Jashari image in pieces and the occasional characteristic sound of police "motorolas", as they call all their handheld talkie-walkies, nothing else apparently pointed at any other violence or looting happened in the gallery space. About what really took place we tried to hear from one of the exhibition curators, Gordana Nikolic.

jelena: I saw from the distance that the police is not in the mood to let us in, and quickly decided to apply 'Confuse the cat LTD approach' [famous technique from Monty Python Flying Circus]. I decisively approached the door saying 'My name is Vesic, Jelena Vesic. I collaborate with this gallery. Call the curators, please'. Policeman entered the building and Gordana Nikolic was already on her way to the door. They let us in. I hardly managed to hold the laughter among 'the keepers of law and order' after such serious administration of the statements like 'my name is Bond, James Bond'. Gordana was visibly upset. She is showing us all the damage and recreating the event for us. Gordana and Kristijan Lukic are members of newly established association Napon, from Novi Sad. We all move to the office of Ivana Marjanovic and Vida Knezevic, curators of Kontekst gallery. It is quite busy there and we don't want to bother with additional curiosity. Kontekst was already in the crisis for some time, struggling to keep its space, which obviously growingly catches the views of different business and governmental initiatives, due to it's exclusive and central location. Additional problems and media scandals they felt was the worst they needed. The further strategy is to spread the information about the event and to put the pressure to responsible governmental institutions to re-open the show. This is the consensual agreement.

21:00

vlidi: Our crime scene investigation in Kontekst is coming to an end. Hanging in the air all the time was what a final decision would be, and if the exhibition will be open tomorrow. But now we know for sure – the decision is not to continue with “Exception”, at least for the time being. Police said it can’t offer any guaranties that it can prevent any damage and aggression and that the situation will not escalate again. They predicted right – tomorrow evening we will learn that stones will be thrown at the gallery, and that the logo of Kontekst placed by the entrance will be destroyed, as well. We are told that police did made some arrests on that occasion, but about the identities of the people and possible charges we know nothing yet. Leaving the gallery I was thinking if Kontekst people could still use this “situation” and media attention to turn the recent unlucky development of events to work for “their side” - since a month ago or so, the county officials announced that they want the Center for Culture Stari Grad, the umbrella organization trough which Kontekst is hosted here, out of the building. Business? Probably. Or some officials wanting a more “fancy” workplace…

Now I reminded myself that this is supposed be the eyewitness account on what took place at the gallery, but some strange witnesses we are – none of us actually was there during the moments of violence inside.

***

Going home, where Zorana will show up for a Chinese New Year celebration, we don’t feel like making a dinner anymore. Too exhausted and cold and disturbed by what happened. So we buy a pile of muffins of different flavours in nearby Costa Caffee.

***
The exhibition "Exception" was aimed to investigate the institutionalization of contemporary art under the conditions of European integration politics. One of the thesis of this institutionalization is that the culture crosses all the borderlines, buffers the violence, reconciles the enemies, announces the peacetime. Therefore, we should accept the culture as the method, and solve political problems by cultural means.

Did "Exception" fell into the trap of this new institutionalization?

part I

part II