ŠEJLA KAMERIĆ
When the Heart Goes Bing Bam Boom
11/12/2015–28/02/2016
Curator: Başak Doğa Temür
Entitled “When the Heart Goes Bing Bam Boom”, Šejla Kamerić’s first solo exhibition in
Turkey presents a wide selection of the Bosnian artist’s production. Kamerić’s body of work
insists that the delicate and the sublime are not pushed aside during catastrophe or hardship
but that they exist simultaneously, revealing a complex, psycho-geographic landscape, and
the tenacity of the human spirit. The title of the exhibition is taken from the lyrics of a punkrock song and evokes one of the basic dilemmas of love and life: the co-existence of
exhilaration and a constant sense of insecurity. Curated by Başak Doğa Temür, the
exhibition brings together works produced through various media, including video,
photography, installation, and sculpture; and includes three new works, thus offering an
overview of Kamerić’s practice.
Kamerić’s works often involve her personal experiences and memories of the Bosnian War
(1992–1995). Her iconic 2003 work “Bosnian Girl” shows a black and white photo of herself,
superimposed with a graffiti that reads “NO TEETH . . .? A MUSTACHE . . .? SMEL LİKE
SHİT . . .? BOSNİAN GİRL!” (sic). The original graffiti was written by a Dutch soldier from the
Royal Netherlands Army troops who were a part of the UN Protection Force in Bosnia and
Herzegovina during the war. Kamerić realized “Bosnian Girl” as a public project in the form of
posters and billboards scattered throughout the city. The exhibition at Arter features an
edition of this work from the Vehbi Koç Foundation Contemporary Art Collection.
Involving her own image is a recurrent strategy that the artist employs in many of her works.
The exhibition includes several works that fall under this category such as “Basics” (2001),
“Sorrow” (2005), “30 Years After” (2006); along with her new production entitled
“Embarazada” (2015), where she poses as Pierrot the clown with her 9-month pregnant
belly.
“When the Heart Goes Bing Bam Boom” features a significant number of Kamerić’s film and
video works where the artist creates narratives in which boundaries between the past,
present and future tend to dissolve. Her 2010 film “Glück” was shot in Berlin, a city that
retains many traces of the Second World War. There are three protagonists in “Glück”: a
younger woman, an elder woman, and the city of Berlin, with its empty streets and shut-down
shops. In the film, the two women never meet, nor does Kamerić give any clue regarding a
connection between them. However, the physical resemblance between them and the
recurrence of the same accessories on both protagonists create a feeling of displacement
and a shift in time. The city of Berlin in the background stands as a reminder of a painful
past, and implies the possibility of a similar suffering taking place in the future.
One of Kamerić’s most recent projects, “Ab uno disce omnes”, commissioned by the
Wellcome Collection in London, will be shown at Arter for the first time following its premiere
in the 2015 exhibition “Forensics: Anatomy of Crime”. This exhaustive work revolves around
the artist’s interest in the integral role of forensics in Bosnian society in the wake of the
Bosnian War, and addresses the brutal legacy of the recent past. It took the artist two years
1
of field research, including visits to mortuaries, DNA laboratories, graves, and locations of
atrocities, as well as crime scenes, to initiate the project. She collaborated with regional and
international institutions, the families of missing persons, and survivors of the concentration
camps. “Ab uno disce omnes”, which the artist refers to as a ‘monument of data’, is made up
of two parts: a video depicting the 85 hours of video footage she produced in her two-yearlong research, and a web site (http://abunodisceomnes.wellcomecollection.org), which
visitors can view and contribute to with relevant documents, photos, and videos. The project
has been influential in terms of putting pressure on the governments that have been
withholding information; as a result, lists of missing persons and mass graves were made
public. Today, 20 years after the war, there is no consensus on the war narratives among the
peoples of Bosnia - Herzegovina. With “Ab uno disce omnes" (this title derives from Virgil’s
Aeneid, and translates as “from one, learn all”), Kamerić resets the plot by putting forward an
unbiased, constantly growing, brand new “narrative”, simultaneously suggesting that any
grand narrative could be deceiving.
Šejla Kamerić
Šejla Kamerić was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. A graduate of the
Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, she has participated in the Gwangju Biennale
(Gwangju, South Korea 2012), the Baltic Biennial of Contemporary Art (Szczecin,
Poland, 2009), the 15th Biennale of Sydney (Sydney, Australia, 2006), TABOO / the
Tirana Biennale (Tirana, Albania, 2005) and MANIFESTA 3, the European Biennial of
Contemporary Art (Ljubljana, Slovenia 2000). Some of her recent solo exhibitions
have taken place at the National Gallery of Kosovo, Pristina (2015), the
Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius (2012), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade
(2012), Kunsthaus Graz (2012), MSUM Ljubljana (2012), the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2011) and MACBA, Barcelona (2011).
Her first short film “What do I Know” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival was
awarded the Best Short Film at the Zagreb Film Festival (2007) and Best Fiction Film
at the Adana Film Festival (2008). She received The ECF Routes Princess Margriet
Award for Cultural Diversity in 2011, and a DAAD-Berlin Artist Residency Fellowship
in 2007.
Her work is included in collections such as the Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de
Paris; MACBA, Barcelona; the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; the ERSTE Collection, Vienna; the Vehbi Koç
Foundation Contemporary Art Collection, Istanbul; and the Art Collection Telekom,
Bonn.
2
ARTER - space for art
İstiklal Caddesi, 211
Beyoğlu 34433 İstanbul
T + 90 212 708 5800
info@arter.org.tr
arter.org.tr
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Thursday
Friday–Sunday
Closed on Mondays.
11–19
12–20
Admission free.
You can download the images of works from the exhibition at the link below:
www.arter.org.tr/W3/Files/PressItems/PRESS_KIT.zip
For further information, please contact
Mr. Üstüngel İnanç
+90 530 569 3221
ustungeli@arter.org.tr
3