Kunsthistorische mausoleum is one of the most exciting art spaces in Belgrade. It contains a steady, permanent display, but each visit definitely becomes one unique experience. However, the uniqueness which I'm describing here is not a product of any kind of spectacularity, except for the one which 'people of culture' might eventually experience by sitting in the fairly humid basement [which is the aesthetic and economic condition of the production represented here]. Rather, it is the consequence of the possibility to initiate an curious conversation with always different group of people gathered there, usually varying from 3 to 6 persons. This is, again, the consequence of the limitation of the space, but the vividness of communication that could be achieved within such a small and diverse group of people makes one wonder if this limitation is actually also there by choice, and not as the consequence of contingency. Kunsthistorische mausoleum is centrally located, yet its neighborhood is a bit out of the way; it is open to the public view, yet not completely public - it is enwrapped by a grey zone of institutionalized art spaces and practices. Kunsthistorische mausoleum is not permanently open to the public as a quickly manageable display or publicly accessible space along the popular route; the visit has to be scheduled in advance, and is usually performed as a guided tour and the conversation among the visitors and the guides. The key-keepers of the space are Goran Djordjevic - the doormen, and three Belgrade-based people, officially educated as art historians: Dejan Sretenovic, Branislav Dimitrijevic and me. It is one of the just two museological spaces that include art history in its name, and history itself becomes the one of its main topic. Kunsthistorische mausoleum presents history of art as the story in which the main roles are played by the Authors and the Originals. It is the place where we feel invited and inspired to discuss these notions inherent to general perception of cultural production, including all the surrounding conceptual, economical and political parameters - from the concepts of modernism and enlightment to the reality of art market and how the world can look like in the future if we change some of its basic presumptions.

Kunsthistorische mausoleum exhibit copies of famous arthistorical masterpieces, but its collection also includes various originals and fakes of designed objects from the era of modernism, the objects that we 'read' as stereotypically ethnographic, the art historical books, the novels exploring ethnography, colonization and history, LPs of the popular music in Yugoslavia during 50s and 60s that could be played on the famous Iskra monophonic gramophone... All this is obsessively interconnected knitting the one story, the story on copy. The artifacts are arranged in two small rooms with walls neatly covered by the non-perfect hand-made copies of the artworks that symbolize our history and our understanding of art. The originals after which the copies exhibited here were made are the reproductions from the two most famous arthistorical books: Concise History of Modern Painting by Herbert Read and History of Art by H.W. Janson. In the books some of the reproductions are in black and white, so the copies are black and white as well. It is not about making the perfect copy, but about the attempt to discuss if the copy can take us outside of the story in which we are playing always-already predetermined roles as artists, creative subjects, content producers or novelty inventors.

A few days ago I took there the guests of the Festival of Free Culture, dedicated to the different understanding of cultural contents, especially in the sense of the economy and circulation of "content". This view on cultural contents retroactively affects the established relations among the 'authors' and 'users', experiences and goods, institutionalization of the value and economical interests of the “licensed” distributors and so on. The Festival of Free Culture this year was mostly concerned with change of understanding of “content exchange” and circulation brought by the 'digital paradigm', and with how do we operate with the notion of property in culture today.

After almost a year of a break I visited again the Kunsthistorische mausoleum together with Rasmus Fleischer and Magnus Eriksson from Piratbyrån - Stockholm, Ronaldo Lemos from iCommons and other initiatives, coming from Brazil, Vlidi from slobodnakultura.org from Belgrade and Goran Djordjevic - the doormen of the mausoleum. Goran and I presented the place as the pre-historical spot of different understanding of copyright and anti-institutionalized views on products of creativity. In the entire story connected to the world of digital technology, IP and cognitive capitalism, Kunsthistorische mausoleum was playing the role of 'Altamira cave', that is, the starting point from which the further story develops.

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I'll re-tell some of the common stories that the visitors of the place could talk about. In some of the stories, you will find the word “I”, which belongs to the first person, witness, narrator, or “the author”. But this “I” will remain non-authorized here, because the copy destroys the singularity and uniqueness of authorial subject - of the 'I' in the story. The 'I' becomes then the possible place of inscription and political subjectivation.

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STORY 1: KNOWN AND UNKNOWN
One of Walter Benjamin's theses on copy relates to turning the known into the unknown. For example we have Mondrian's painting and its copy. The question would be: Is the copy of Mondrian's abstract painting also abstract, or is it maybe realistic? All of a sudden, from something that was entirely clear to us, from the original, we get something that becomes indistinct, ambivalent and unclear. The task of modern art was to turn the unknown into the known. The whole of modernity and all those adventures, discovering new laws, climbing Mount Everest, or travelling into the jungles of the Amazon and discovering new civilisations - all of that was discovering the other, the unknown, taming the wilderness, the primitive and the dangerous - turning the unknown into the known, creating a nicely organised garden in which we can recognise everything, and in which we feel comfortable. Copy turns our nicely organised garden back into a dark and dangerous jungle.

STORY 2: MODERN ART OR AMERICAN ETHNOGRAPHIC VIEW ON EUROPEAN MODERNITY
The story of modern art in the 20th century, which usually begins with cubism somewhere around 1907, was actually only created in the thirties, as it was told by Alfred Bar, then director of MOMA. In the Exhibition "Cubism and Abstract Art" Picasso's painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was placed at the beginning of that story for the first time. We actually never were, and never will be capable of seeing that painting without seeing it through the eyes of Alfred Bar, even when we stand in front of the original. That painting has been interpreted so many times that we don't know what we are looking at any more when we stand in front of it. It only became apparent that we will never be able to see it or experience it in any direct and unmediated way. When, recently, I went to see the MOMA exhibition in Queens I noticed a couple who were looking at the painting from a distance with an expression of awe. I watched them and wondered what in fact they were looking at. What do they see or imagine they are seeing? Their own admiration in front of something that is called "an original"? The greatest "masterpiece" of modern art in the 20th century? We should think about the position from which you can simultaneously see both Alfred Bar and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, i.e. we should think about this story in which both would be some sort of heroes, characters called "Alfred Bar" and "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon".

STORY 3: RELIGION AND HISTORY
The author? The question of identity raised by copy is not only who is the author, but where is the author at all? Maybe the concept of the author belongs only to one specific story which we call “history of art”. Lets go back to the past for a moment, when Christian images and relics played a crucial role. Relics were the object of adoration in a world that was completely permeated by Christianity. They represented material evidence for the authenticity of the Christian story. People lived entirely immersed into this Christian story, every day, all year, from birth till death. When, with enlightenment, another story was established, a story which we now call »history« (and history of art is only a part of that story) all of a sudden some other objects became important, and the objects that used to be important earlier, for example, Christian images, icons and other relics, acquired other meanings. Sacred objects are no longer sacred, but artefacts of an epoch with a specific artistic significance or craftsmanship value. That which we can infer today is that we too, as did the people of the Christian world then, are immersed in something that is an historic story, but we are not capable, not equipped, to see that when we talk about history we are actually talking about the story of the past, and not about the past itself. We are all pervaded with that historical story, and thus we are not capable to experience ourselves differently and think about the world in a different way. If we could distance ourselves from all this, change to a different position, then, from there, the historical story would probably be seen in total. From this new place an image with a Christian theme can be seen both as a Christian relic within the Christian story and as a work of art within the history of art. Reading Benjamin and thinking about all this I could imagine a possibility which would allow for a copy of a Mondrian to become more important than the original. In the case that the story to which the copy of the Mondrian belongs becomes more important than the story of art history to which the original belongs. In the same way in which all significant »Christian sacred objects« became less significant »historic artefacts from the Christian period«, or in the same way in which the clay figurines or tools of the prehistoric man that don’t even exist in the »Christian story« became very important to our »historical story«.

STORY 4: HISTORIC AND NON-HISTORIC CULTURES
The thing that I always found interesting was the position of the artistic subject outside Europe. In some ways he doesn’t represent a part of general history, at least not a part of its »main course«. He is generally always outside of the story which we call »history of art«. Up to now, it was certainly considered a sort of fault, a drawback. Nevertheless, it is very possible that now, when we start looking for this place outside of the story of history, that might become an advantage. During the time of rationalism and enlightenment, whatever those terms meant, Western Europe established the historic story as a certain way of overcoming and taming the past. This story was later transferred to other nations and cultures through the process of colonisation. On the other hand, Europe was simultaneously colonising its own past with that story. I have a feeling that somewhere I came across the idea of »historic« and »non-historic« nations and cultures... Question: If Cameroon, as a country in which good football is played, beat England, which, as we know invented football, whose victory would it be? Would it be Cameroon’s or England’s? At a certain level, it is, naturally, Cameroon’s victory, on another level, it is England’s victory, and on a third level, it could be both Cameroon’s and England’s victory. I would say that it is still England’s victory, even if it were beaten by Cameroon. I remember a painting from the 19th century that I saw recently: the work of the French painter Gerome who was known as an »orientalist«. On the painting, which is titled Chef Arnaut faisant la sieste we see a person in a Turkish-oriental dress sitting relaxed on a sofa and smoking from a long cigarette holder. I looked at the painting for a long time and thought about my own position. Am I on this or that side? Am I Gerome, or am I the »Arnaut«? Or am I maybe both at the same time? For Gerome there was obviously no doubt as to what side he stands, just as his »Arnaut« probably was not aware that such a question can be raised. I think that it is necessary to find a position outside of the historic narrative, from where both Gerome and the »Arnaut« can be seen.

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Live-performed and heavily dubbed audio version of these stories on copies, produced for radiodays.org project, can be found here.
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