Mersad Berber in his Zagreb atelier; he says that his inspiration is drawn from mystical Bosnia, its Ottoman past, and the tragic venture of its people Mersad Berber (67), one of the greatest and most distinctive Bosnian painters and graphic artists who has been living in Zagreb since 1992, has become an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts last spring, organized large exhibits in Moscow, Barcelona and London, and is currently working on a new project titled “Archive” which, among other things, will be exhibited at the monumental retrospective in Barcelona in 2009.

Berber is an excellent drawer and illustrator, though primarily a graphics artist; he has also worked in theatre scenography, created movie posters for movies, such as those by Kosturica, and has designed record covers for the band Index. His inspiration mostly originates from the “mystical world of Bosnia, its Ottoman past, and the tragic venture of its people”. He has had exhibits in all large cities in the world, from London and Madrid, New York to Moscow, Jakarta and New Delhi; he has received approximately 50 awards, and experts consider him to be one of the greatest post-Classic artists in the world. His most significant projects were “Chronicles of Sarajevo”, “A Trip to Skender Vakuf”, “Srebrenica”, “A Homage to Vlaho Bukovac”, “Ottoman Chronicles” and others, and his works are highly valued in the world.

NACIONAL: You have had exhibits in galleries throughout the world, from New York and London to Jakarta and New Delhi, your works have been portrayed in many museums, for example, in the Tate Gallery in London, and you have been included among the greatest neo-Classicists of the world in encyclopaedias. What was crucial for your success?
I owe permanent gratitude to several of my professors from the Ljubljana Academy, for example, Bozidar Jakac, a classic of Slovenian graphic art, as well as Zoran Krzisnik, a brilliant curator and founder of the famous Ljubljana International Biennale, who included me in the Yugoslavian selection when I was a second year student and the winner of the Preserna Award. That was a period of the fantastic flourishing of graphic art. At that time Riko Debenjak had just returned from Paris, a great Slovenian graphic artist and my mentor for my Masters degree, and he brought with him the technique of coloured print. That caused a revolution on the visual arts scene because the new technique was adopted by Janez Bernik, Miroslav Sutej, Virgilije Nevjestic, Dzevad Hozo and others. It brought a flourishing of graphic art in Zagreb, Belgrade and Sarajevo. That is the reason why I had exhibitions in hundreds of world exhibitions, from the Tate Gallery to the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, as a student.

NACIONAL: You do oil painting, theatre and movie posters, scenography, such as that for Merchant of Venice in the Folger Theatre Group in Washington, and you also illustrated a number of books. What is your primary vocation?
- I am a drawer, graphic artist, and the technique of etching attracted me already at the beginning of my art education. I learnt etching privately from professor and great artist Bozidar Jakac, alongside my studies at the Academy. He loved Bosnia, understood its Ottoman layers, and he gave me expensive typographical paper for Christmas. He belonged to the classic school of portrait painters, and because he had spent a range of years alongside Tito, he created his great portrait “Tito in Jajce”. As a teenager, I made a series of drawings titled “Memories from Bosnia” which received positive critiques from artist Gabrijel Stupica. Later, I created etchings based on those linear drawings. That is how I came to love graphic art as a magical alchemic substance.

Artistic partners and husband and wife, Mersad and Ada Berber, with son Ensar and his wife in Moscow this spring NACIONAL: You have excellent status in world markets where your works are estimated to be valued in the thousands of euros. What attracts buyers most to your works?
- Due to my modesty and politeness, I have never discussed that with buyers so I do not know the answer. I have had luck that as a young artist I have worked with important gallery owners, for example, when I received the Grand Prix in Florence in the 1970’s, my manager was Efrem Tavoni, who had a gallery near Bologna. He brought me into the world of galleries. I then worked with the eminent gallery Hans Höppner from Hamburg and Munich, and at the beginning of the 1990’s, after recommendations from Frano Lasic, I contacted his cousin Ivana Mestrovic Stancomb, the granddaughter of Ivan Mestrovic, who was intending to open a gallery in London with her husband and friends. The Albemarle Gallery is today one of the most important galleries of modern figurative art in England. I have had five exhibitions in the gallery until now, and I met the eminent critic Edward Lucie-Smith at one of the exhibits.

NACIONAL: Is your new project Archive a continuation of your work?
- That is a homage to the National Museum in Sarajevo, which is a vault of extraordinary art treasures, and the authentic history of one nation without lies or lacquer. In it, I have found extraordinary works by Czech photographers who reconstructed Sarajevo’s exciting past through postcards they designed, doing an excellent job of classifying the city into various ethnic groups so there exists a Jewish map, a Bosnian map, a Croatian map and an Orthodox map. I used the material by combining it with the newest digital techniques in graphics with citations from the past and my own interventions, and I am editing them into one entirety in a modern way. That means that I am using a combination of classic techniques such as aqua tint, etching and dry needles with digital print, which is called ink jet. But I am still faithful to the classic easel painting, maybe not in the sense of research, but definitely in light of respecting its value.

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NACIONAL: Is the mystical world of Bosnia your greatest inspiration?
- Yes, those 500 years of eastern culture and great religion, accepted by a part of my people, and the scent of the Orient poured into Bosnia where even today you can sense the tragic venture of people who lived on the borders of great cultural civilizations. As a graphic art painter, I was always fascinated by the magical historical décor and various layers of Bosnia, from Ottoman times to today, as well as the trauma of its people. It is difficult to rationally explain this, but Bosnia is a topic which has run through my entire opus, from its history and individual cases such as gypsy Berisa, all the way to illustrations of novels such as Soneta (Sonnet) by Skender Kulenovic. One character in the novel by Orhan Pamuk, who entered the world of the Ottoman Empire as a writer, explains the world of the Orient in citations by the great German Romanticist Friedrich Hölderlin: “Afore the light of your great ruler, children learn to pray before they learn to speak; before they learn to walk, they learn to kneel.” Author Mesa Selimovic gave an excellent definition of the spirit of Bosnia when he received the award for Dervisa i smrt (Dervish and death): “It is too large a body of water for the earth to absorb, and too small to be called a sea.” When I arrived in Zagreb in 1992, I left my homeland and I could calmly observe it as an emigrant. But the nostalgia remains.

Berber family with pianist Ivo Pogorelic in the Sarajevo atelier

NACIONAL: How did the war and the fact that you left Sarajevo reflect on your life and your works? - That was the crack which broke the glass. A dramatic commitment, conflict, and division occurred in the intellectual core of Sarajevo, and I was disappointed by many former friends and colleagues from the academy. For example, my great friend and poet Dusko Trifunovic, who textually inaugurated the rock scene of the former Yugoslavia, abandoned the idea of Bosnia and went to the other side. Mesa Selimovic also went to Belgrade, the author of Derviša i smrti (Dervish and death), most likely the best novel of the former Yugoslavia, but he was extremely unhappy there. I think he died unhappy, far from Bosnia, which he called a country full of gentleness and roughness. There he wrote only one short novel Ostrva (Island), which did not have the strength of Tvrđave (Fortresses) and Derviša i smrti (Dervish and death). Emir Kusturica also converted, one of the best directors in Bosnia. They all attempted to identify the Bosnian identity with Serbian roots, but they ended tragically because they were never accepted in Belgrade.

NACIONAL: Prior to the war, you were supposed to work on the scenography the movie On the Drina Bridge (Na Drini ćuprija) for Kusturica, How did that end?
- Together with Abdulah Sidran, he wanted to make a screen version of the great work by Andric, and the producer was supposed to be Albert R. Broccoli, known as the producer for the James Bond movies. They came to my atelier together to see the drawings I had created for the scenography. Several days later, Kusturica came to visit me again and told me that nothing would come out of the movie because the producer wanted a new Baghdad Thieves (Bagdadskog lopova). This opposed his perception for On the Drina Bridge, and the project was cancelled. When we still believed that the movie would be filmed, we asked Kusturica how he would portray the impaling of the head on the stick, the most controversial scene in the novel, which, at the same time, is one of the most painful historical topics of the Bosnian people. The entire Bosnian historiography and documentation on the construction of the bridge disputes that crucial scene from On the Drina Bridge. Kusturica told us that it is only literature. I made his first posters for Father on a Business Trip (Oca na službenom putu), and the poster for Do you remember Dolly Bell (Sjećaš li se Dolly Bell).He was a never-ending talent, but after he ended his cooperation with Sidran, he lost his originality and the thread which connected him to the Bosnian layers.

NACIONAL: How do you remember your atelier in the Grbavica district of Sarajevo, which was destroyed in the war?
- I spent most of my time with my colleagues from the academy, with Mak Dizdar, who wrote the most sublime verse of both Bosnian and Croatian poetry, as well as with people from outside of these circles. Once I was visited, immediately after his first Warsaw success, by pianist Ivo Pogorelic who told me that he would love to meet me and Ada. That is how our great friendship began. It continued in Dubrovnik where he bought a house, like many other distinguished artists, for example Ruza Pospis-Baldani and Lovro Matacic. We also visited Ivo in London, when he was preparing for the Deutsche Gramophone Symphony number 1 by Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky with Herbert von Karajan, which they never performed due to their parting. After the death of his wife, Alise Keseradze, he distanced himself from us and never visited Dubrovnik. It is clear that he needed make reassessments. I created a series of his drawings, which were supposed to be published by Mladinska knjiga, but then the war began.

With his friend ABDULAH SIDRAN in his Grbavica atelier in Sarajevo

NACIONAL: How did you get by in Zagreb? - When I arrived in Zagreb in 1992 via a Norwegian transporter, I wanted to kiss the runway and eat eggs, green salad and fruit. I immediately began to work with Rudi Labas on the monumental scenography for Osman by Georgija Para so I did not have time to think. I could have healed the trauma caused by the war in Bosnia by doing work on scaffolding. My cooperation with Zagreb was natural; I had already had exhibitions in the Forum Gallery in the 1970’s, I had one of my greatest exhibits at the Art Pavilion at the end of the 1980’s, and I created my cartoon Tempo Secondo with Ante Zaninovic in the city. During the war in Bosnia, I had an exhibit at the Mimara Museum of the Dubrovnik Diaries, and the drawings for Osman. The Dubrovnik Diaries were created in my home in Lozica near Dubrovnik, without power and water, accompanied by the sound of sirens at a time when I did not expect that, several months later, the same thing would happen in Sarajevo. I got settled in Bosanska Street where several Croatian artists lived previously, so I am symbolically connected to Bosnia. But the nostalgia remains.

NACIONAL: Why nostalgia?
- When they asked Tarkovski, after he emigrated from Russia to Italy, why he called his movie Nostalgia, he answered them by citing the Greek poet Seferis: “Wherever I travel, Greece causes me pain.” My friend Predrag Finci, who recently participated in Bejahad, explained the significance of emigration of individuals without citizenship in his novel Tekst o tuđini (Text on Foreign lands) for which I did the illustrations: “It is better than death, worse than life.”

NACIONAL: How did your well-known project on Srebrenica emerge?
- A friend from Sarajevo, Professor Senada Kreso, gave me a novel titled The Graves: Srebrenica and Vukovar (Grobnice: Srebrenica i Vukovar), which was written by forensic scientist Eric Stover. That book deeply shocked me. Its leit motif was the notion of a man who had survived the holocaust: “The only thing which is worse than the holocaust is its oblivion”. Looking at the documentary photographs by Gilles Perres, I felt a little ashamed that I had done nothing on this sacred topic. I was all the more ashamed because Srebrenica is still occurring. When forensic scientists complete their work on the site, the sad funeral march moves from Sarajevo to Srebrenica and all those present see off the victims of that war with piety. Confronting probably the greatest tragedy of the Bosnian people, I felt like a small officer in Kafka’s prose records documents and organization them in graphic kaleidoscope. I noticed that the verism of life is so divine, and no fantasy is necessary. I worked spontaneously for two years and even though that project was not as attractive as Homage to Vlaho Bukovac, the exhibit was well accepted.

MERSAD BERBER at an exhibit in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art in Petrovka Street with collectioners in March this year

NACIONAL: You were born in Bosanski Petrovac, a town well known for its weaving tradition. How did that environment influence your formation? - After the large massacre in Petrovac in the 1940’s, my parents arrived in Banja Luka as refugees. I grew up in pure manufacture: my father had a wonderful hair salon for women in the centre of the city and he played the violin, and my mother was, alongside the famous Rasema, one of the greatest weavers in Bosnia. She worked in the tradition of Bosnian carpets, which have deep Anatolian roots, and she established a school for carpet weavers at the end of her life. She most likely influenced me and my brother Omer, also a painter, with the infinite love for that trade and colour. She even virtuously weaved some of my reproductions.

NACIONAL: Who first noticed your talent?
- My teacher in elementary school saw my drawings and caricatures and sent them to the Cicak and Liberation newspapers. In high school, some of my satiric articles were proclaimed to be trockist. I was arrested by the police and suspended from school so I had to pass fourth grade through private lessons. I passed the entrance exam for the Faculty of Architecture and I spent some time drawing caricatures with Nedjeljko Dragic for the student newspaper. The editor was Stipe Suvar, and an entire generation of young writers were employed, from Zvonimir Majdak to Alojz Majetic. I then went to Ljubljana to the then eminent Academy of Arts and completed painting in Professor Maksim Sedej’s class. After I returned to Sarajevo, I worked at the Academy of Arts until the 1980’s.

NACIONAL: Who most influenced you?
- Banja Luka at that time was a lively city; you could reach information about new painters which arrived through the American pocket monograph, Art Pocket Book. We were all impressed with the Swiss expressionist Paul Klee. As a high school student, I was completely fascinated with Croatian modern art and works by the famous Munich threesome - Racic, Kraljevic and Becic. I like Babic, Stancic, Jordan and Vanista. I was influenced at the Ljubljana Academy by my professors Jakec, Stupica, and Debenjak. I was also fascinated with Krleza who I mingled with, artist Ismet Mujezinovic and Abdulah Sidran, the author of the major collection on the war Sarajevo Tomb (Sarajevski tabut).

NACIONAL: And your wife is an artist?< br /> - My wife Ada is a designer, but she is withdrawn and does not like to speak about her work in public. Before the war, she had an exhibit in the Sebastian Gallery in Dubrovnik, and now she works in fashion design for several large European boutiques, for example, Riccione in Vienna. When I created large graphic prints, some of my best works were dedicated to Ada. Our sons did not continue this weaving, artistic line which I inherited from my mother Sedika. My older son Ensar completed his studies in Switzerland and runs my administration and works in the hospitality industry, while my younger son Azer completed journalism in Zagreb.

WITH IGOR METELICIN, Moscow gallery owner, and Zurab Cereteli, eminent sculptor and the President of the Russian Academy of Arts in Moscow

NACIONAL: What has changed today in the picture of Sarajevo? - Today a completely different generation with a new sensibility has emerged in Sarajevo’s intellectual, literature and art scene. My Sarajevo no longer exists. I feel as though I belong to a generation which has long left the scene. But the nostalgia and many emotions remain. Since leaving Sarajevo, it has been difficult to return even though I love it. The accusations in certain newspapers that I was Tudjman’s man and a proud Croatian were too painful so some wounds and issues have not been solved. I never denied these accusations thinking that it was enough that those who knew me knew the truth.

NACIONAL: Don’t you have a need to clear up these issues today?
- I always try to express my synthesis in my graphic art and drawings, as well as through allegory and metaphoric discourse. This formula is more attractive to me today than all other forms of discourse.

Academic in Russia

NACIONAL: Last spring you became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts. Do you consider that to be the crowning achievement of your career?
- Yes, the fact that I was selected to be an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts, as well as the large exhibition I held in the Museum of Modern Arts in Moscow in March, were the crowning achievements of my career. The Russian market is familiar to me because I had several exhibits in Moscow and St. Petersburg before the war. Actually, Russia, England, and Spain are the countries where I have had the most exhibits. Now Valerij Turcin, an academic and one of the most eminent art experts in Russia, is writing my monography. I am preparing a monumental retrospective in the new Caixa Forum Art Museum in Barcelona, which is managed by the large Spanish banking foundation La Caixa. The exhibition has been organized based on a proposal made by my friend and the former president of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, whose wife I made a portrait of back in Sarajevo. I think that the 2009 exhibit will be the peak of my professional work. After that, there will be an exhibit in Zagreb where I will portray the sequence of my large themes, inspired by Bosnia, from Chronicles of Sarajevo to my newest graphic project Archive.