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Inauguration of the Bosnia and Herzegovina pavilion at the Venice Biennale (photo “Studio Rio”)

Present several times since 1993, Bosnia and Herzegovina returns to the Venice Biennale after a five-year absence. The return is entrusted to the project of the sculptor Stjepan Skoko, with his “Mjera brunette” (The measure of the sea), expression of “freedom, uncertainty, possibility and eternity”

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s return to the Venice Biennale is a very significant one on the occasion of the sixtieth edition of the oldest international art exhibition, organized every two years in the lagoon city. The exhibition takes place mainly in the Castello district, with extensions in the collateral spaces and pavilions scattered throughout the main island, ready to host works from 90 countries from all over the world.

The representation of the Balkan country, which has officially participated only six times throughout its history, had been missing since 2019 when Danica Dakić brought the “Zenica Trilogy” to the stage ” dedicated to the legacy of Yugoslav modernism starting from the city symbolizing the idea of industrial progress of socialist declination as embodied in Tito’s era.

On that occasion, the work consisted mainly of an audiovisual installation on the transition from the real to the imagined urban space projected in the rooms of Palazzo Francesco Molon, in Ca’ Bernardo, therefore outside the circle represented by the permanent exhibition spaces, generally housed in the inside the Gardens and Arsenal complex.

Today the scenario has changed radically and the curators’ choice is mainly dictated by the desire to bring out a lesser-known vision, linked to the Mediterranean propensity of the country, in particular through the intrinsic geographical characteristics of the Herzegovina component, embodied on an artistic level in the sculptor’s work Stjepan Skoko.

His project, entitled “The Measure of the Sea” or, in the original language, “Mjera brunette” (literally: the measure of the sea), officially represents the Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina and aims to ideally accompany the process of accession to the European Union, in this case through the exaltation of the Mediterranean soul of the country in a projection towards the future that distances itself, as far as possible, from the constant echo of memory and history widely associated with one of the most complex geopolitical contexts of recent decades.

Having arrived in Venice a few weeks ago, the works created by Stjepan Skoko for the Venetian exhibition were presented in preview last 18 April at the UNESCO headquarters of Palazzo Zorzi Galeoni in San Severo, in the Castello district (Castello, 4930), where they will be on display until Sunday 24 November 2024.

It was precisely the rooms of Palazzo Zorzi Galeoni that hosted the first Bosnian-Herzegovinian pavilion in 1993, in the midst of the conflict, when what was at the time an embryo of the institution symbolizing a courageous idea projected towards a future began to be talked about imagined, also thanks to the salvation of works of art at a time when that of human lives seemed pure utopia: Ars Aevi.

Conceived in besieged Sarajevo by its visionary creator, Enver Hadžiomerspahić, the original museum project dedicated to contemporary art as the result of intense cooperation between international artists and museum curators, has grown and traveled over the last 30 years starting from the decision by Achille Bonito Oliva to support the pioneering initiative with the invitation to the Venice Biennale which he directed in 1993, the first edition to be truly defined as “multimedia, multicultural and transnational” and to challenge the traditional “territoriality” of the pavilions.

The role of UNESCO and international importance

The union with the United Nations Organization represents a further strengthening of the presence of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and this not only on a symbolic level, given that the UNESCO Regional Office for Science and Culture in Europe in Venice it is the only headquarters in Italy, as well as the only one with a specific mandate of a European dimension and the specific task of promoting scientific and cultural cooperation at a continental level, with particular attention to the countries of south-eastern Europe and the Mediterranean basin.

On the occasion of the inauguration, the director Magdalena Landry opened the ceremony by recalling the importance of cooperation with the Sarajevo headquarters, called “Antenna”, and the constant exchanges to and from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the fields of creativity and culture which culminate precisely during the Biennial.

Landry also introduced the message of the artist Skoko – supported by UNESCO – in the representation of the sea as an expression of “freedom, uncertainty, possibility and eternity, as well as a great symbol of life on the planet” and, at the same time, as appeal to the “need for action to protect the health of the ocean heritage” of the globe, an urgency constantly recalled throughout the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030).

Inauguration of the Bosnia and Herzegovina pavilion at the Venice Biennale (photo “Studio Rio”)

University and transregional cooperation

Another important novelty for Bosnia and Herzegovina is represented by the collaboration of a university institution for the first time both for the preparatory and exhibition work. Also present at the inauguration was the Rector of the University of Mostar, Zoran Tomić, to strengthen the role of the academy and the Museum of Modern Art, which in three and a half years of existence has organized 14 exhibitions in various European and non-European countries.

For the University of Mostar, the choice to support Stjepan Skoko’s project demonstrates the importance of the Mediterranean both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and on a global level given that – Tomić recalls – “thousands of migrants every year seek a better life in Europe by crossing the Mediterranean”.

Stjepan Skoko’s works can therefore symbolize the constant search for a “better future and the sea is what takes but also gives back love, hope and the desire for improvement”.

Ready to recall the myth of this geographical and cultural centrality celebrated in particular by Predrag Matvejević, originally from Mostar, in “Mediterranean Breviary” recalling the famous expression “the Mediterranean reaches as far as the olive tree grows”, he is also the curator of the Pavilion , Marin Ivanović, who includes it among the cultural references on which the concept expressed through the Bosnian-Herzegovinian project is based, together with the work of Fernand Braudel, whose reference to Mediterranean continuity in the hinterland in contrast with the instability of the coasts.

Artist Skoko highlights the importance of regional cooperation highlighted in the synergy between similar institutions with locations in Mostar, Banja Luka, Sarajevo and Zagreb, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art of Republika Srpska, the National Museum of Modern Art in Zagreb and the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The emphasis on transregional cooperation and on the valorization of the Mediterranean identity is also highlighted in the speech of the President of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Borjana Krišto, who also recalls that “this exhibition is inaugurated precisely at the moment in which the country from which we come from is facing a new chapter projected into the future.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has, in fact, finally started the process towards negotiations for EU membership, and the layout of our pavilion fully expresses our European identity. Although the kilometers from our Adriatic coast are very few, Neum and the hinterland of Herzegovina are fully Mediterranean.”