Braco Dimitrijevic

Born in 1948 in Sarajevo (YU)
Lives and works in Paris (FR) and London (GB)

  

Triptychos post historicus

1992
3 trumpets, 1 oil on canvas and 1 apple
Dimensions variable
Purchased in: 1994

“BD: ‘Like classical triptychs, my triptychs are made up of three parts: an original painting usually lent by a museum, an object in current use, and a natural element, fruit or vegetable, for example […]. There is no hierarchy of objects and the three components are presented together on a stand which acts as altar and question mark.

JHM.: You have written somewhere: ‘There are no mistakes in history, it is the whole of history that is a mistake’. Could you explain what you mean by post-historical?

BD: I define post-history as a time when all difference fades between, on the one hand, legend, which I see as the sum of all individual and often irrational interpretations, where everything is possible, and, on the other hand, history as we currently understand it, with its strict limitation to established facts. It is a time of after-history, the time of multi-themed views […]
In our civilization, original pictures and representations have a different status, and this is why I find it essential to persuade a museum curator to let me use a thing which is sacred in our culture. It seems to me important to bring this type of model-situation to life, even if only for a few minutes […].
I see these works, these triptychos and paintings, like a portrait of our planet, because, if the truth be told, for the person who looks at the earth from the moon, there is virtually no distance between the Louvre and the Jardin des Plantes (Botanical Gardens)."

^{Interview by Jean-Hubert Martin with Braco Dimitrijevic in Braco Dimitrijevic, Culturescapes, 1976-1984, Cologne-Berne: 1984, republished in Artefactum, August 1984.}

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