[spectre] art attack on Mladic

[Andras Riedlmayer]

http://www.b92.net/info/galerija/zoom.php? 
nav_category=99&start=54&image_id=45411

[PHOTO]: Danish artists Pia Bertelsen (left) and Jan Egesborg in  
Belgrade,
adding satirical stickers to pro-Mladic posters put up by  
ultranationalist
supporters of the general.
======================================================================== 
=======
The Associated Press
14 April 2006

Copenhagen artists challenge war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic with humor

By KATARINA KRATOVAC
Associated Press Writer

  BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro, Apr 14 (AP) -- No one has poked fun at
top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic quite like this before.

  Two Danish poster artists set out this week to challenge the popular
nationalist mantra here that the former Bosnian Serb commander was a  
hero
who defended Serbs during Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Their weapon -- light  
blue
stickers with provocative messages.

  "We know when you are having sex," read one sticker, typed in Serbian.
"We know who you are talking to," "We know you have weak nerves," and
"We know you are a coward," proclaimed others.

  Hundreds of pro-Mladic posters plastered earlier in the week in the
Serbian capital by a far-right nationalist group, showing a uniformed
Mladic saluting, were an obvious target.

  Artists Jan Egesborg and Pia Bertelsen scouted Belgrade for the  
posters,
and glued their stickers on top.

  The two, whose group is named "Surrend," seek to invite despots and
war crimes suspects everywhere to give themselves up, but also call on
the person in the street to surrender to humor.

  Egesborg said that for Mladic, the message is: "It is over for him,
he has no way out."

  Mladic was indicted by the Netherlands-based U.N. war crimes tribunal
on charges of genocide in the 1995 slaughter of up to 8,000 Muslim men
and boys in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica. He is believed to be
hiding in Serbia, sheltered by nationalist hard-liners in the Serb army.

  Belgrade has been given an April 30 deadline to hand him over or
risk a setback in efforts to build closer ties with the European Union.
The government has promised to deliver Mladic to the tribunal, but is
facing increased opposition from nationalists.

  Well known in Denmark, Surrend's 2005 exhibition of posters at the
Museum of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen criticized the "coziness"
of Denmark's well-ordered life.

  Egesborg says the group has placed stickers in Berlin, London,
New York, the Swedish town of Malmo, and Baghdad, as well as ads
in a weekly newspaper in Harare, Zimbabwe.

  "We also go to hotspots, places artists don't normally go to,"
Egesborg explains. "We do risky things but we don't want to stir up
any violence. We use art to go against tyrants with humor, trying to
show people we are fun."

  Bertelsen has been in Belgrade several times since the 2000 uprising
that toppled former autocratic ruler Slobodan Milosevic, Mladic's  
mentor.
She says she can feel a growing disillusionment now -- in sharp contrast
to the vibrant optimism of the days and months following Milosevic's  
ouster.

  The "We know..." in each sticker is an allusion to George Orwell's
Big-Brother-is-Watching-You theme, she said. "We are not political
activists, all we want is for people to stop and think, maybe laugh
a little."

  In Belgrade, few laughed. Most passers-by stared uncomprehending
at the Danes putting up the stickers.

  "No one here will get the point, it's too subtle" said attorney
Julijana Andjelkovic, 55.

  Ana Ladjanovic, a 25-year-old Belgrade student, said the stickers
were a "super idea."

  "It was high time someone did something to those shameful Mladic
posters," she said.

  Others disapproved.

  "They shouldn't meddle in what they don't understand," engineer Branko
Odalovic, 48, said.

  An angry former Bosnian Serb soldier, who gave only his first name,  
Sava,
criticized the Danes. "I fought in the war, we were right to defend  
Serbs.
I would fight for Mladic again," he said.

  For their part, the artists were surprised at not seeing any  
anti-Mladic
posters.

  "Where are the people who suffered, lost families in the war? Why isn't
their voice heard," Bertelsen said. "Or is everyone just depressed and
tired?"
_______________________________________________________________________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4910508.stm
BBC News | Europe  Friday, 14 April 2006, 15:27 GMT 16:27 UK

Danes launch art attack on Mladic

[PHOTO]: Pia Bertelsen (left) and Jan Egesborg carry out hotspot art

Two Danish artists who have ridiculed Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and the
Iraq war have turned their attention to Serbia's fugitive Ratko Mladic.

  There is still support for Mr Mladic in Serbia, and nationalist groups
recently plastered Belgrade with posters of him.

  But most are now covered with little blue stickers that read: "We
know where you are"; "We know when you have sex".

  Artists Jan Egesborg and Pia Bertelsen, say their additions are a
fun way of saying that Mr Mladic's time is up.

  Ms Bertelsen says the stickers are a way of telling Mr Mladic that
people like Nato and the Serb government know where he is.

  Mr Mladic is wanted in connection with the massacre of nearly 8,000
Muslims at Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo in 1995.

No party

  But the actions of the artists, which they call "art in hotspots",
has provoked different reactions on the streets of Belgrade.

  "Reaction has been divided," says Ms Bertelsen, 32. "Half of the people
say they think it is funny and brave and laugh about it - some asked us
for stickers to give to their bosses.

  "But we met a 19-year-old who says Mladic will never surrender and
he is a Serbian hero.

  "Another, who was in the Bosnian Serb army, said: 'Put up the stickers,
but we will never let him surrender'."

  The aim of their group "Surrend" is to invite tyrants and war crimes
suspects to give themselves up, and to inject a little humour.

  Mr Egesborg, 42, says they do not belong to any party or activist
organisation.

Inspiration

  Last year, he and another artist put up 1,000 ironic anti-war posters
in Iraq - to get their message heard by ordinary Iraqi people.

  The posters showed elephants, mice and cats together with messages
like "Trust in Propaganda" and "Kill your Enemy".

  He said they were in Belgrade for the funeral of Slobodan Milosevic
and were struck by the lack of people demonstrating against him - or
against Mr Mladic, whom the Serbian government has promised to hand over
to the UN war crimes court.

  "I think we can make a difference in a positive way because it seems
people in Serbia are quite depressed about the situation," he said.
"We are hoping we can inspire people to get on the streets and protest
like they did a few years ago."

###