BOŽIDAR KATIĆ

LET’S BUY CROATIAN!
2008
Performance in public space

When war started in the Balkans in 1990, Croatia set out on the fire sale of hotels, factories, islands and beaches… Foreign investors identified an ideal opportunity and started buying everything that seemed to have a future, and on the whole did. People at the top then shared out the rest that had not been sold off. Croatia began to lose its identity. Now, ten years after the end of the war, the situation is unchanged. I make use of the Croatian checkerboard as symbol representing the whole of the country. Cubes made of metal, stone, wood and terracotta in various shades of red and white vertically disposed into a chessboard represent given parts of the country. The performance starts with a proclamation (the intro) and an invite to the auction that follows. The first cube is offered at a symbolic price of one kuna - here starts the interaction with the public. As the cubes are sold, so the price rises. (B.K.)
BOŽIDAR KATIĆ (1983, Zagreb, HR) finished the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb. In 2002 he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Art in Zagreb, the Graphic Art Department. During 2005 and 2006 he was participating in the student-exchange program at the Visual Arts Academy in Bratislava (Slovakia). He is one of the founders of the association for art and culture udruga_b. In his work, he employs the media of drawing, print, painting, sculpture, performance and graphic design. His work has been shown on several group and solo exhibitions. He is the author of several installations and performances in public space, as well as two public sculptures in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is based in Zagreb.