On my way to the opening of the exhibition, I was thinking about the monumentality, complexity

and ambiguity of the dominant phenomena that Saša decided to tackle. Part of me was worried that
this might be too much for Tkačenko, who still biologically belongs to the emerging artist category. A
comprehensive visual study of Yugoslavia, its significance, the avant-garde nature of the idea, its role
in post-war Europe, and its relations to other supranational and multinational state projects requires
a studious, eloquent artist with laconic solutions, but equally educated recipients as well. Having
arrived somewhat early, in order to clearly read the statement, I found several separate entities intended
to complement each other dialectically. At first, I was not able to see the dialectic there. Because it is
not enough to merely visit this exhibition - one must think about it. In my case, for weeks. The visitor
first faces two symbolic antonyms: French and German. On one side, we see a painted aluminum
(airbrush technique) with a blue sky, in which the quotation from the cult book “Lightning Boom”
(Future of Nostalgia) is elegantly inscribed. We find Tkačenko’s intention to play, question and
manipulate the issue of identity: the Russian from Ulan Bator, who declares himself as a Berliner,
travels from one homeland to the other on the airplanes of Air France. Right in front of the work, we
find a row of champagne bottles usually served on this flight, which the protagonist of the quotation
speaks positively about. The work opposed to this seemingly idyllic, intercultural presentation, is a
triptych, a digital print made in the spirit of the best traditions of the minimalist abstract painting. By
burning the film of an analog camera, translating it into digital, and flirting with material patterns of
the aforementioned formal artistic expressions and then returning to analogy, Saša is once again again
playing with the roles of the marker and the tagged. To my question whether the colours in the picture
are an allusion to the German national flag, the author responded with a laugh, opening a multitude
of possible interpretations of this multifaceted work. In any case, it wasn’t until last night that, while
thinking about these opposing objects, I saw a clear link; as if somebody had put an invisible banner
between them, I saw the words: Ich bin ein Berliner. The historical Kennedy replica, the beginning of
Europe as we know it today, was a necessary catalyst for the intensification and unification of the Old
Continent through the partnership between France and Germany, paving the way for the European
Union, a historic peace and supranational project. Following this visual prologue, the visitor is faced
with the monumental symbolic representations of the state to which this exhibition is dedicated: The
concrete model of the never-completed project of the Museum of the Revolution is powered by gas
from the bottle located below it, while an eternal flame rises above the skylight of the roof shell of the
building. The phrase eternal flame had always sounded like a cynical aporia to me. This scene -
especially knowing the destiny of Yugoslavia - is pure Baroque to me. The ephemera of the ideological
construct introduced us into the ephemerals of everyday life, and the conflict between symbols of the
eternal revolution, built in the manner of high modernism (chronicles of an epoch) and its fragility
(which is to be shown eventually), is a kind of indicator of ideological crossings and overlapping which
may have melancholy as a consequence. The central point of the exhibition deals precisely with this
topic: A replica of the arch at the entrance to the Serbian pavilion in the Venetian Giardini. The section
of del Giudice’s building, opposed to the utopian model of the mentioned museum, is a reference to
Hans Haacke’s 1993 Germania. The hardened marble, with the help of interior acoustics, gave the
illusion of a bizarre applause which the visitor could hear on the way to the oversized replica of a
German Mark coin. In accordance with the possible two-way interpretation of the notion of utopia,
it seems interesting to establish a relation between Tkačenko’s and Haacke’s work. The first one
understands utopia as a non-place (not in the Auge-ian sense), and the other one as a good place, with
an understandable deviation between the cynical and the critical. Since Serbia, as the legal successor
of Yugoslavia, inherited the building, defined as the national exhibition space at one of the most
important world exhibitions as well, there is a heavy, carved and formally inaccurate inscription:
JUGOSLAVIA above the entrance. Tkačenko plays with this notion - he covers each individual letter
with neon light and another, more current and dull signifier, the term MELANCHOLY arises from
one of the symbols of the unfinished country. This mental state, closely linked to several forms of
clinical depression, is characterized by feelings of apathy, chronic fatigue and depression. The artist,
through a historical review of the fate of the country in which he grew up, the territorial-political
climate from which he personally emerged - and which vanished - communicates his (and not only
his) inability to orient and adapt to the chaotic discourse of discontinuity, dominant on what is
colloquially called Yugosphere. Yugoslavia, as a ruin, and as a utopia itself represents the discontinuity
in the history of the territory politically correctly named the Western Balkans. Once again, playing with
the paradoxes: before, as well as after Yugoslavia, this space consisted of several colonies, pseudo-
states whose leaders worked in accordance with the goals of those whose interests they represented. I
recently wrote in my new novel, and I will be bold enough to quote myself: All these Nations,
triumphally self-proclaimed, plagued by the blood of their neighbors, in a pagan revel, will soon
disappear under the weight of the empires, plunging them on both sides. Their leaders will call it a
conspiracy, unaware that it was merely natural selection. Because a person rarely tolerates nonsense
and nature never does. Yugoslavia was the only step forward from this discourse, temporary in the
historical sense. It essentially lasted as long as Moderna, formally a few years longer or shorter,
depending on the sensibility of the interpreter. Mass literacy, a clear cultural policy and appreciation
of artistic production were associated - and will continue to be associated to - her name. And yet, the
first and second Yugoslavia, remain as a whole in yet another dialectical relationship, so present in this
work by Tkačenko. The continuity established between the Sokol Movement and the Alliance of
Pioneers corresponds with discontinuity in commitment to approaching their goals and activities. The
first one lasted until the death of the king Unifier, as part of the ideological framework for the
establishment of a personal regime (dictatorship is a wrong notion; many lawyers have already spoken
about this many times), the second until the establishment of the dictatorship of Josip Broz (the
structuring of the pioneer phenomenon was lost at the moment when the elites started to believe in
the eternal life of their Supreme deity, forgetting that it just might happen that the Marshal, the
connective tissue of the second Yugoslavia could, by chance - God forbid - die). Hence, Tkačenko’s
melancholy. Perhaps he, just like some other great artist and connoisseur of contemporary artistic
tendencies, also suffers from the feeling that he is an ancestor to himself. There is another link -
indirect but impressive to me. In Saša’s work, the text is the dominant form of expression. Perhaps it
should be noted that another man who lost his homeland (though for entirely different reasons), once
anticipated the birth of conceptual art. I am talking about the canvas that only works with the title.
And it says: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Consequently, another
emotion emerges in me: a cry for communication and intercourse, for the establishment of an
abstracted entity that would allow the dissolution of newly born colonies / governorships. Our
environment is actually a random monument, as Alois Riegl would call it - hence this need for re-
examination, artistic restructuring of a short-lived transnational concept of Arcadian features. The
general impression, after the closing of the exhibition, is that this, at a first glance local theme, actually
contains global character which concerns this entire civilization. I remembered a shocking theatre play,
in which Ljubomir Bandović pronounced the following words: It is wonderful and sad and terrible.
This replica is actually a quote, masterfully embedded in the text by a brilliant playwright. It is the
speech of Rade Konstantinović, a Serbian (Yugoslav?) Philosopher, who said goodbye to his Croatian
(Yugoslav?) friend, writer Bora Ćosić, after nine years of not seeing him. For all these reasons
Tkačenko’s exhibition requires contemplation after it has been removed from the Eugster || Belgrade.
Because Saša is obliged to show it again, in another time, another place. He and his work deserve it.
It’s beautiful and it’s sad and it’s terrible.