Banksy and the guys

These days in Belgrade, fate crossed two concepts that balance between politics and art. An exhibition was opened at the beginning of the year by the mysterious artist Banksy, whose work is inspired by the political events of our era in various parts of the planet, from Gaza, over the coast of Sicily, to Britain. Visitors can see a collection of his posters, covers, installations and take a selfie hugging the bombshell. This famous installation, like most of Banksy's works, implies an intervention in public space, a graffiti or stencil that becomes part of the urban landscape and marks the place where the artist draws attention to an event or emotion. His works are actually most valuable when they are everyone's, and when collectors and gallerists get their hands on them, they are pushed into the world of money and power, from which it is very difficult to escape.

This paradox was embodied in recent months in Belgrade and Serbia during the duration student blockades. Every protest in this country sooner or later got its own artistic expression, so in the nineties we had the music of alternative rock bands, the Rex gallery, the film Lightning, Radio B92, drummers, and finally the fist of Otpor. Today, the symbol of protest is a bloody palm, and students use banners, gifs and mimes on social networks in a very creative and humorous way, as well as posts that inspire and drive the government, which is not ready to respond to this kind of resistance, crazy.

We can say that the government's response is actually a media or literal attack on the protesters who have been blocking roads for months and paying their respects to the victims of the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad. The answer is aggression in various forms. One of them is offensive graffiti insulting students or urging them to return to their studies. A few decades ago, my colleague Teofil Pančić established the unbreakable connection of illiteracy with all ultra-nationalist graffiti, and it has been maintained to this day. That's how the red Cyrillic graffiti "Let's go to school" appeared at the entrance to Jovin's high school in Novi Sad. So overnight, the barbarogen from Novo Sad became a viral and imaginary opponent of students and protests, our Banksy, the famous "Ćaci". He got all the characteristics of masked hooded men who threatened students, supporting the regime for a few thousand dinars, with the protection of the authorities. Ćaci is the name of a social group, because it contains a hidden individuality but also a plurality of collectivities. It exists solely as a reaction, because it functions and exists only as an involuntary response to student demands. Ćaci is a reaction in the political sense because it is presented as a regime surrogate of politically suitable or suitable students and pupils.

While students strike and block the faculties, Ćaci wants to study and pass exams. While students and citizens stand in silence every day at 11.52:XNUMX, Ćaci wants to pass because that's when she has urgent work to do and is ready to drive her car into people. I have heard from different sources that for a few hundred euros, they are recruiting students to "beat up students" in gyms, with the promise that legal assistance will be provided in case of arrest. There may also be several lawyers who will appeal to the court about the almost unanimous decision on the strike of the Bar Association of Serbia, because they want to work, and they will get the fastest solution in the history of the Serbian judiciary.

Like the search for Banksy's identity, the search for Ćaci has reached epic proportions. The climax of the paradox arose when, at the suggestion of the mayor of Kraljevo, Ćaci, as a representative of what the government calls "honest Serbia", received a bloody middle finger as a visual presentation. Overnight, Ćaci became a "cock keeper", the guardian of what the government and its supporters offer in response to students and citizens who support them. To make the madness even bigger, the return to schools and colleges is practically outlined with red chickens as road signs. It took less than a couple of days to stop this campaign, because it is practically political suicide, a recognition of one's own incompetence, arrogance and primitivism, in short, everything that the students accuse the current government of. Before that, the aforementioned hooded men were given the bizarre task of guarding posters with dicks, which made the campaign even more pointless, because the same guys previously had the task of guarding billboards with Vučić's image. Instead of a selfie of visitors hugging a bomb at a Banksy exhibition, government supporters identified themselves with the middle finger, the supreme phallus. This type of symbolism exists without interruption in Serbian political life, from Pobednik (whom they called Golać), until today, through the famous sculptures of the Valjevo artist Maki "Leader" and "Vojvod", i.e. a phallus with an ass stuck on it, which again was a metaphor for the then coalition of Milosevic and Seselj. We received a luminous phallus made by the Pianist, as well as games with the word duck during the protest of activists "We are not drowning Belgrade". At that time, lawyer Đukanović was furious at the opposition's yellow duck and offered a "duck for dad". You remember, protests were regularly held at the construction site of Belgrade on the water. Measuring a duck is a metaphor for political competition, as in the proverb "a duck is bigger than someone else's father". Ćaci actually became the guardian of that penis, which made its creators, the current government, the most senseless.

I guess that's why Ćaci's first work at the entrance to the gymnasium was quickly painted over, just like the custodial guards on the overpasses and footbridges were out of work. But don't be fooled, Banksy's exhibition will last for a few months and move on, but Ćaci has not disappeared, he is just waiting for a new opportunity, a reason and an order, when he will continue to paint on the walls again for a few thousand dinars.