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scenaStudy for a Memorial #9, 2010, smoke and pencil on paper, diptych, 70 × 170 cm, courtesy: the artistEvil Painter, 2010, oil on canvas, 100 × 120 cm, courtesy: the artisttion of a memory is performing an act of rebellion. The sovereigntyof art as an unofficial system of signifying is showing the way to othermodes of a non-institutional shaping of the public mind.¬ To conclude, I would like to ask you what role performance playsin your practice. As other critics have remarked, you seem to turn topainting and drawing as a way of not letting yourself become absorbedback into the social fabric, of allowing your work to become a testimonyof your time that is denuded of direct reference to actualfacts, people, and events. Nevertheless, these are always present;they always follow you and insinuate themselves. Would you considercreating another work such as What Stands between Us and Tomorrow,the speech you gave on a crane in front of the National Parliamentin Belgrade in 2006? Is art a mere rhetorical discourse, or doyou actually believe in the artist’s capacity to make a statement thatis valuable for the society at large?√ The prevailing world order has very little capacity to evolve intoa just, self-reflexive, and self-correcting system. The critique of capitalismis as necessary as it is fashionable. The fashionable element insuch rhetoric is somewhat irritating; the last two grand subjects ofpoststructuralist thought, the post-colonial condition and the reflectionof modernity, resulted in a great number of artists merely illustratingthe notions involved. Nowadays, art circles are pleading fornon-material input in opposition to the material production of capitalism,hence the fashionable element is to deny the rightfulness ofany work rooted in material and posterity. Another denouncement iscontained in a derogatory attitude towards the notion of representation,considering it powerless and conservative. As I’ve explainedbefore, I see representation as a symbolical replacement for its subject,putting the subject and its connotations in the public focus andallowing for new semantic links and connections to arise around it.However, the artist is not to become a mere means of execution,a persona behind the canvas. The artist is a medium just as much asthe paint or charcoal. The artist stands for the corporeality of the artworkand its topic. Painting and drawing are performative acts ofestablishing a set of ideas by using the entire mindset and bodilyfunctions. Just as much as I argue for a certain idea through thematerial work, I also argue for it in words and deeds. I believe thereis a strong performative element in everything I make and a directintervention in the public sphere is often crucial for visibly establishingthe possibilities that the practice of art offers to the social fiber– new possibilities for reading, explaining, and managing the publicrealm.103