Kemil Bekteši, Vildana Hermann, Milena Jandrić: Suit of Fire

Curator: Isidora Branković

The exhibition Suit of Fire encompasses works by the finalists of the Zvono Award, including artists Kemil Bekteši, Vildana Hermann, and Milena Jandrić. The exhibition addresses issues of identity and home—constructs that accompany and shape us throughout our lives. Through works created between 2022 and 2024, the artists aim to map acquired and lived memories, creating a dynamic space of internal and physical home—offering the audience an opportunity for a mental dialogue through communication of the lived, acquired, and imagined. The artistic works of Kemil Bekteši, Vildana Hermann, and Milena Jandrić are united by an ongoing search and connection of personal and familial identity, memory, and experience. The biographical elements, clearly reflected in their diverse creations, lead to an ideological migration of the artists, exploring their impact on identity and psychological awareness. The title Suit of Fire signifies the integration of the internal aspect of being through the challenges of change and various states of consciousness, as well as the physical position of the place we occupy and the place we are moving towards.

Kemil Bekteši, this year’s winner of the Zvono Award, begins his work GG20 from the piece My dad loves me so much, he let me be an artist, where he establishes a different form of relationship with his father through artistic practice. A bakery machine, removed from its original functional space, acquires a new purpose within a gallery and artistic context. As far as is known, these are the first mechanical drawings created in Bosnia and Herzegovina, originally presented as a performative installation where the audience, alongside the artist, shaped the work. The abstract drawings, made with the artist’s father’s tools, were controlled by both the artist and the audience. Displayed as a monumental installation, they function as a monument to a specific event.

Vildana Hermann enters her home through imagination and inherited family memories. Unlike Bekteši, who offers the audience a monument dedicated to a specific event, Vildana Hermann starts from the context of monuments to events in which she did not participate. Through the process of creating and venerating skin, the artist experiences a close and tangible connection with the interior. It is hot, smelly, and liberating. Rohaut is based on organic elements, elevating them to a pedestal, with raw skin occupying the central part of the work. In this context, the short film is presented as a performance of the methodology for handling visual narratives. Rohaut represents a constant departure and return.

In her work Path of Movement, Milena Jandrić explores the physical and mental movements that change and grow within and around a person due to frequent migration. What remains in a person’s consciousness after certain movements? In this case, the artist places the present moment at the center, transforming it into memory and motion. In the interactive installation Spatial Perceptions, she leaves space for the audience to create their own imagination of mobility, forging new paths. The artist observes and records movements, departures, and shifts that leave traces within us, creating a monument to a specific memory.

The exhibition Suit of Fire analyzes and documents the impact of individual, collective, and familial heritage, incorporating it into the present day, as particularly reflected in the works of Kemil Bekteši and Vildana Hermann. The suit, in this case, represents the legacy we carry with us throughout our lives. Milena Jandrić, in her work, raises questions about movement and migration and their impact on psychological awareness. Psychological awareness and its changes become the inner fire that shapes the future. Questions of where we come from, who we are, and where we are going remain the primary forms of identification in this direction.

A little fat. Red meat. How tight is our skin? A lot of love. And bread? In the search for home and questioning its impact on our identity, it gets hot. A lot of friction. Where we start and whom we return to remains a lifelong question.

Video about last year’s exhibition Zvono 2023 is available here.