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 Danijel
Zezelj
ES: Dear Danijel, we used to meet you here in Italy
for performances and seminars. What brings you here at the moment?
Are you in contact with someone to have your work published?
DZ: I am currently collaborating with Grifo Edizioni.
They are publishing my new graphic novel Small
Hands and a second
edition of Ritmo del cuore, wich had been sold out for a while. For
some of my latest works, I’ve tried to contact some italian
publishers, without getting any answers. Since publishing is becoming
less and less expensive you can as well do it yourself. The main
problem now is how to reach the public(you probably know it well
by your experience with Inguine). If I was able to solve this problem,
I would personally publish my book.
Multimedia performances constitutes to me a mean to change my technique,
and a way to link my visual art with music (all performances have
been realized in collaboration with Jessica
Lurie, song writer and
sax player.).Performances allows me to reach the audience directly,
to show them my graphic novels and Jessica’s music. It’s
an hard work, thats asks for an intense phisical and emotional involvement,
and I am not still sure it does make sense.
ES: How was your Italian experience? You can be
honest and mean!
DZ: I arrived in Italy in 1991, after leaving former
Yugoslavia and having spent some months in London. As I had been
expelled from England (immigration police), Italy became the only
country where I thought I was allowed to live and work. In a sense,
Italy saved my life. People who lived in Montepulciano, whom I nearly
didn’t know at all, accepted and helped me..I left a piece
of my heart there..and I really owe them a lot.
I also think Italy is a very special place. There’s a sort
of “struggle” between different influences, good and
bad ones, but there is still a strong sense of community, and joy,
people always looking at the good side of thinks. There are different
forces, numerous ideas and tendencies (political, cultural and social)..but
there is an hope as long as there’s struggle. That’s
my personal opinion, that’s how I feel it, probably because
I am an outsider.
ES:
Now, you live in the “wisdom of evil”…how does
it mean to you being an european, croatian drawer, coming from
former yugoslavia, to live in USA?
DZ: It means being an immigrant, that is not feeling
at home, not feeling at ease, relaxed, and quiet. It means you can
never be part of a group, you are always an outsider and you must
carry on living, thinking and acting as you were at the border.But
this continuous effort keeps also you watchful and alive, which is
a good thing. If you are alone you can be a good man, but when you
are in a group you can become an animal. So, I think of “wisdom
of evil” , what I think of every other country..one has to
live day by day..trying to survive.
ES: You
repeated twice that you consider yourself as an outsider. What does
this word mean to you: to have no masters or chiefs? Or..? Is there
someone that you think can be your master? Actually USA is the country
of natural immigrants..I don’t think your coming from another
country would make you feel as an outsider.
DZ: With the word “outsider” I mean
someone “who does not belong to”. It means trying to
be out of relationships asking for a chief and a follower, one who
is inferior and one who is superior.
It’s hard to find a place like that in our society , as all
the sistem is based on the principle of competition, of being controlled
or to control. This is what your family, your school, your work,
and tv teach you. I am trying to avoid all that as much as I can..(
that’s often impossibile)..I want to live my life not being
based on domination and control. This is possible only if your relationships
are based on love and respect, independence and creativity. These
values are my country, my lands of freedom. USA was fonded by immigrants
and on the idea of a free, indipendent world. But as material values
killed all the other values, the idea of freedom became the ideal
of property. So here we are.
ES: What’s your own identity? Does this question
make any sense to you?
DZ: I have partially already answered to this question.
Identity cannot be defined by anything else but your heart, your
head, your body. It may seem abstract but I do live this situation
in a very concrete way, in everyday life, it’s not always a
choice but it is always a necessity.
ES: I am wondering if there could be a link between
your strong defence of personal,individual identity and the fact
you come from a country that doesn’t exist any more and experienced
a cruel civil war on community identity.
DZ: Probably. As there’s no concrete place
I can call “my country”. I am almost obsessioned by the
idea of defending the “independent state of myself”.
This sometimes seems even ridicolous to me. But I think the idea
of “common identity” could be a very dangerous myth.
ES: Let’s talk about your work in a more
specific way. Could you describe us your style, from your point of
view, using three adjectives?
DZ: I’d probably use only 2 adjectives: black
and white. Moreover, I consider style as a supeficial and irrelevant
feature. Style is a mean of communication, a technique, it should
only be guided by emotions and ideas that you want to express.
ES: I find your style very xilographic. Have you
ever made any etchings or xilography?.
If you didn’t draw,
what would you do?
DZ: I made some etchings during my years at the
Zagabria Academy of Arts. Actually I’ve studied painting and
my vision of art comes from exercises on classical painting. Most
of all it comes from baroque painting and from chiaro/scuro. I have
been inspired also by russian vanguard and german expressionism black
and white movies. The visual quality of those works is unsurpassed
ES:Now you live between United States and Zagabria,
where you founded Petikat. Tell us something about this new project.
DZ: Petikat is a graphic studio and a publisher
founded by me and my friends Stanislav Habjan and Boris Greiner.
We have tried to work as a self sufficient laboratory, where every
side of the creative and publishing process is under our control.
Boris and Stanislav are also writers, and our main aim is to publish our work,
(and other artists works.) Following also graphic works, we try to cover production
costs and not to be dependent by sales. That would be ridicolous in a country
where only 4 millions people inhabitants read and speak croatian.
ES: What’s
up now in Croatia? I mean in the illustration scene, but even in
everyday life.
DZ: Croatia, and Zagabria in particular, bears
a strong tradition in drawing and animation. Zagreb film has been
one of the most respected and creative studios in the world during
the sixties and the seventies. In a way, important experiences in
the world of comics were born even in the eighties, in the same period
as Frigidaire in Italy, and Metal
Hurlant in France. Now seems like
all talented croatian artists work for DC Comics and Marvel. Their
works are good, but I do not find it any interesting. It’s
just a kind of comics that I do not read. In my opinion,there are
currently no review in Croatia bearing the possibility of real expression
and communication, or any comics being the representation of the
cultural, political and social scene (like Stripburger, Strapazin Inguine, WW3.)
ES: We all have dreams and projects waiting to
be realized. What are yours?
DZ:
In those days I am trying to finish another graphic novel, which
temporary title is Stray Dogs. This story has a lot to do with
the conception of “not belnging to” – as a
condition, necessity, imposition, choice. I have been working
on this project for long time and Gardner Museum of Boston is
hopefully publishing it. Let’s see. That would be a ery
ineresting connection between graphic novel and an important
traditional cultural institutuion.
I am also going to work on a screenplay together with the director
and cameraman Mario Amura.
ES : People compares you and Zograf to Bregovic
and Kusturica: One has gone abroad, the other has not. What do you
think of it?
DZ: This is a wrong and sad comparison. First of
all, I don’t have much respect for Bregovic’s work, and
I do not respect at all kusturica’s one. But I do really admire
Zograf and his work.
Then, Zograf and me do not share any experiences and backgrounds
about life and war in FormerYugoslavia. I find it superficial to
compare us only because we come from the same country.
I refuse all definitions based on deduction or generalizatio. Media
and politicians use this kind of definition;.this has nothing to
do with real life. Reasons why I left and Zograf didin’t are
personal and best explained by our works. That’s the important
thing.
Elettra Stamboulis |
