Taken over a 10 year period (1999 to 2009), the featured works — documentations of actual battlefields — call into question the autonomy of “place”: the disparity that exists between historical events and the geographic locations in which they occur.
Apart from the occasional historic marker or didactic memorial plaque, little visual evidence remains to distinguish one site from another, a disconnect that evokes the transient nature of history, the arbitrary lines of the battlefield and the universality of the theaters of war.
Conscripted to fight in defense of his hometown of Sarajevo during the Bosnian civil war, Sˇeric-Shoba served the majority of his military mandate digging trenches amidst the bodies that littered the battlefield. It is from these wartime experiences that the artist developed a profound sense of distrust for a political machine that saw neighbors taking aim at neighbors, firing across seemingly arbitrary lines of demarcation.
The artist’s travels found him photographing numerous battlefields, including those at Waterloo, Gallipoli, Troy, Verdun, Normandy, Istanbul, Gettysburg and Kursk.
The exhibition also features “The Battle of Brooklyn, 1776” (2009). Also known as The Battle of Long Island, it was the first major battle of the American Revolutionary War.
DAC is at 30 Washington Street in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. For more, call 718-694-0831 or visit www.dumboartscenter.org.
