Vulin attacks artist Marina Abramović

(Patria) - Aleksandar Vulin, former head of the Serbian Security Information Agency (BIA), a person on the US "blacklist" and more recently a close associate of Milorad Dodik, has recently attacked Marina Abramović, a world-renowned artist. The proposal for her to be admitted to the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts has met with Vulin's brutal criticism in "Večernje novosti".

"The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is, first and foremost, a Serbian institution," wrote this "senator of Republika Srpska".

"This does not mean that the members of the academy must necessarily or predominantly be Serbs, but it must mean that its members or candidates have proven their dedication to the values of the Serbian people, and not of some other people, through their work and their lives, without underestimating anyone".

In his commentary, Vulin asked the members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts:

"What qualified Marina Abramović to be listed alongside Dobrica Ćosić, Ivo Andrić, Jovan Cvijić, Dejan Medaković, Milorad Ekmečić, Vasa Čubrilović..?"

Referring to the famous artist's work to date, Vulin focused particularly on her performance at the 1997 Venice Biennale, for which she was awarded the "Golden Lion".

"Balkan baroque" was the title of Abramović's conceptual project in which she, as Vulin writes, "washes a pile of bloody, maggot-infested cow bones as her response to the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina". Vulin "interpreted" the "washing of bones" as an indictment of Serbs, through which the author "expressed her stance on the ("civil", Vulin emphasizes) war in Bosnia and Herzegovina".

In contrast, he says, "Serbia in flames and its murdered children did not awaken a single moment of inspiration for a performance..."

At the end of the text, written in a pogrom-style Stalinist manner, Aleksandar Vulin referred to the currently most topical issue: the UN Resolution on the Genocide in Srebrenica.

"Will Marina Abramović perform in front of the UN building, washing the white scarves of the mothers of Srebrenica, and will they turn black through the washed water, like those of the Serbian mothers of Bratunac?"

Incidentally, four years ago, a spectacular exhibition by Marina Abramović was held in Belgrade, financed with huge sums of money by the Serbian Government, whose president Ana Brnabić boasted that she personally invited the famous artist to Serbia. At that time, Aleksandar Vulin was a minister in Brnabić's Government.