Selling Brick at Auction of Paintings

AIM Zagreb, 8 February, 1999

Innocence of an amateur is the purest thing after all. Stipe Marusic from Siroki Brijeg, for instance, just two and a half years ago recognised in himself a painter's talent, bought a palette, an easel, brushes and paints, and started his artistic activity as his pastime. Like every other painter-beginner, especially one from a picturesque homeland, Stipe started with landscapes, continued with still natures, enjoyed in conjuring up crimson sundowns, painted the church in Medjugorje, and finally, impressed by importance of the historical moment and inspired by the just struggle of the Croat people for independence and self-sufficiency, started doing portraits of Croat and Herzegovinian leaders and ministers. Stipe would cut out a photo from newspapers, put it by his easel and then step by step, move by move, tried to imitate the lens of a camera on the canvas.

Nobody except his next-door neighbours and people from his village would have even heard of Stipe Marusic and his art, if a miracle had not happened which brought this amateur into focus of Croat cultural interest and made him a candidate for Guiness's book of records or in the category of the most bizarre works of art in some unconventional history of art or of amateurs' art. At an auction organised in Siroki Brijeg for collecting aid for Croats imprisoned in the Hague, a portrait of Gojko Susak painted by the hand of Stipe Marusic was sold for 300 thousand German marks. It is quite certain that until Marusic never has there been in history, nor will there ever be, a man who only after two and a half years of practicising art created something sold for 300 thousand marks!

Branimir Cilic, another amateur inspired by the face of the late minister of defence, fared even better. He sold his portrait of Gojko Susak for 350 thousand German marks, which is in a way logical since Cilic had practised art a few months longer than Marusic. There were also other self-created artists in Siroki Brijeg but there were also some who had managed to graduate at the Art Academy. For example, there was a certain Velimir Racki who had allegedly graduated at Zagreb art academy, and he was announced by the organisers as "the great Croat painter Racki", in order to make the naive public believe that he was really the great, but fortunately for him and his aesthetic view, deceased painter Mirko Racki. But this Racki was quite good enough for Siroki Brijeg and Croat generals, leaders and tycoons, and his painting was sold at the price which old Mirko Racki, has never reached in his lifetime.

All the bought paintings were given as a gift to families of the prisoners in the Hague, and Mrs. Djurdja Susak got as a gift from general Ljubo Cesic-Rojs and the Bank of Herzegovina an oil painting showing the churdch of blessed Virgin Mary in Siroki Brijeg. The minister's widow was deeply touched by the gift and the photo of her smiling face was carried by all Croatian newspapers. Independent newspapers expressed disgust with the auction and the sums of money paid for these amateurs' works, while Croatian Television devoted a few warm and absolutely affirmative contributions about Djurdja Susak and the painters and generals in its news programs.

All the money collected at the auction will be given as a gift to the Croats in the Hague, which caused immediate reaction of the judges at the International Tribunal who announced the possibility that the tribunal might stop paying defence lawyers to Croat prisoners and indictees. They are obviously abhorred in the Hague by the fact that in the country which still receives humanitarian aid and which is still from time to time treated with grants and gifts of the West, more than a million and a half marks can be collected in a single day to aid persons indicted for war crimes.

Who has in fact given all that money and who is offering hundreds thousand marks to amateurs for their works? They are the nouveaux-riches, such as the mayor of Metkovic Stipe Gabric-Jamba, certain companies from Herzegovina, but also private enterprises from Zagreb. Since the auction took place on the territory of Bosnia & Herzegovina, none of them had to pay taxes for the purchased paintings nor did they have to show evidence of origin of their money. These are, therefore, German marks which had already passed through money laundry, although a few days after the auction, rumour appeared that the auction was in fact a specific form of racketeering, in other words that Jambo and company were forced to give their money regardless of what they get in return. If this thesis is correct, the auction in Siroki Brijeg was in fact an artificial form of the old predatory custom from Sarajevo: selling brick. In the dark of Bas-Carsija, a guy intercepts you with a brick in his hand and offers you to buy it for a hundred marks or all the money you have in your wallet. And of course, you cannot but accept the offer.

All the buyers and majority of the guests at the auction belong to the elite of the ruling party in Croatia, and even Ante Jelavic was present, one of the three presidents of B&H and the head of HDZ in that country, so it can easily be assumed that "brick" was sold by Tudjman's party. This was also a handy message to the public, both international - in the Hague, and domestic, Croatian and Bosnian-Herzegovinian, which can draw two useful lessons from the whole affair. The first one is political, and the other cultural. In this space money is held by the same people who control the army an the police, and art and culture are worth exactly as much as the gift and skill of dilettantes, amateurs and illiterate characters.

The auction in Siroki Brijeg was the climax both of political and cultural trend which has begun in Croatia when Tudjman had come to power. It all began with the miracle of Croat naive art and 20-metre concrete monuments to the beloved leader, it continued with the monument to the hand bomb unveiled at a ceremony in one of the parts of Zagreb, and completed with an oil painting showing Mate Boban with a cigarette in his hand, copied from a photograph shot at long forgotten Geneva negotiations. At the time Boban complained that smoking was forbidden in the building where the negotiations took place and that he was forced to hide in order to light a cigarette. It was a great torment for the leader of Herzegovinian Croats and this torment deserved to be immortalised, just as several hundred years before wounds of St. Sebastian had been immortalised in an oil painting. Nowadays there are people in Croatia who are paying hundreds thousand marks for the torment of Boban's cigarette, which is an even greater miracle than the appearance of blessed Virgin Mary in Medjugorje. Mother of God sometimes appears in other parts of the world as well.

MILJENKO JEGOVIC