(Amel Emric/ Associated Press )
- Visitor looks at the contemporary art item at the war bunker, near town of
Konjic, 80 kms south of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Friday, April 26, 2013, as the
once secret bunker, built to shelter Yugoslavia’s Marshal Josip Broz Tito and
the communist leadership from a nuclear war, turns for three months into one of
the world’s quirkiest contemporary art galleries. The exhibition that opens
Friday occupies most of the U-shaped complex some 280 meter (920 foot) deep
underground that reportedly cost some US dlrs 4.6 billion to build but never
served any purpose, and now turns into something that may put the sleepy
Bosnian town of Konjic on the cultural map of Europe. Artists from 19 countries
have worked for months on their performances and interventions in almost 100
rooms of the underground labyrinth, said Edo Hozic, the director of the
project.
KONJIC,
Bosnia-Herzegovina — A once-secret bunker built to shelter Yugoslavia’s
communist leadership from nuclear war has temporarily reopened as an art
gallery, with some exhibits pondering what would have happened if more mushroom
clouds had hit the world’s skies.
The 280-meter-
(920 foot) deep, U-shaped complex is dug into a mountain and took 26 years and
billions of dollars to build; for years, only the late Yugoslav leader Josip
Broz Tito and his closest confidantes knew the subterranean fortress existed.
The secret was
revealed when Bosnia broke away from Yugoslavia in 1992. The new army took over
and still owns the labyrinth just outside Konjic, 40 kilometers (25 miles)
south of Sarajevo. The space had never really been put to use until in recent
years artists turned to authorities with an idea to put this sleepy town on the
cultural map.
In 2011, the
bunker was opened up for three months as an art gallery. This year’s run, which
began Friday, also is for three months, and artists from 19 countries have
worked hard on performances and projects on display in almost 100 rooms of the
facility, project director Edo Hozic said.
For now, the
bunker’s artistic transformation is being done on a biennial basis. But the
goal is to gradually turn it into an art gallery permanently.
It is a
“crazily incredible project,” said Basak Senova, a Turkish artist who acts as
one of the curators.
The entrance to
the bunker, which is supposed to hold 300 people, lies behind a nondescript
garage door of a remote house at the end of a lonely road east of Konjic.
The first installation
is startling: A loud noise simulates the detonation of a 25-kiloton nuclear
bomb in the vicinity of the bunker — making visitors feel as if they are the
last to escape an apocalypse just before the giant bunker door closes.
Right
afterward, visitors walk along a tunnel with floors lined with mirrors that
crack under people’s steps.
Doors along the
long tunnel lead to more than 100 small bedrooms, offices and conference rooms
that are usually decorated with simple wooden furniture and the obligatory
portrait of Tito with his usual “visionary” gaze.
The rooms have
been turned into small individual galleries displaying the works of the various
artists.
Some of the
exhibits try to reconstruct the isolated life of the people who would have used
the bunker had it been necessary. Others focus on tragedies that did occur.
Japanese artist
Saeri Kiritani plays a video of a phantom touching rice and chanting for the
departed souls of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings. Hungarian artist
Janos Sugar uses pictures of people in today’s conflict zones waving their
simple weapons to show how the gun became “the typewriter of the illiterate.”
Tickets to the
exhibit cost 5 euro ($6.50), which includes transportation and a guide.
Would-be visitors have to get a permit from the army to enter the 6,500 sq.
meter (70,000 sq. foot) facility — something that the local tourist bureau can
arrange.
Ibrahim Spahic,
a visitor on Friday who organizes cultural projects in Sarajevo, spoke
glowingly of the bunker project.
“When the art
of war is turned into a war for art, this is what happens,” he said.