Ljuba, 2012-2014

 

 

Ljuba features split screen video installation which combines archive material filmed by Ljuba (Ljubomir Sekulić) in 1989, a cameraman from Belgrade TV and my own footage filmed in 2013. A few of his recordings, shoot during the Romanian revolution, became emblematic media footage broadcasted worldwide. The nature of his job brought him to different places like Gazimestan on Kosovo, where the enormous political rally took place, which became the de facto inauguration of Solobodan Milošević's autocratic regime. A few months later, Ljuba witnessed the downfall of Nicolae Ceaușescu, which marked the beginning of Romania's transition towards democracy. Historical contexts of these two events are different. They are seen as 'uprising of the people' and were staged to throw down a tyrant (in the case of Romania) and to implement anti-bureaucratic revolution that will soften one-party system in Serbia. The meaning of the year remains strikingly unacknowledged for most of the Western Europe. If recognized at all, then the 1989 events are seen as something that happened over there - in the East. Hence, one has to think of the impact in both directions. 25 years later Ljuba revisits Bucharest and we see him redoing the shots juxtaposed with a mixture of obscure, absurd and forgotten images of internal collapse.



excerpt from a multi-channel video installation