The Rabbit Who Ate a Museum
mixed media – book and stand
82 cm x 62 cm x 13 cm, 110 cm x 90 cm x 60 cm
2000–2016
The work was created after a long-term project / action of the artist, which he started in 1999 as part of the exhibition and performance Departure into Whiteness, when he invited friends and acquaintances to intervene on 12 white canvases in a gallery on the topic: rabbit. Namely, for the artist, the rabbit is a metaphor for the problems and diseases of our society, the local community, but also for joy, success and satisfaction.
During the exhibition, a large number of drawings, prints, collages, ad hoc creations, toys and objects in the shape of a rabbit were collected, which became the basis of a future Museum and the book The Rabbit Who Ate a Museum. Since then, The Rabbit Who Ate a Museum has branched out in several directions: as a private museum exhibition whose fund is increasing every day (it now comprises more than 2,000 items on the theme of rabbit), but also as a socially and politically engaged project with intense exhibiting activity.
The work was exhibited at the 48th October Salon: Micro-Narratives in 2007, under the title The Memorial Museum of the Rabbit Who Ate a Museum.
The work deals with the question of how to oppose destruction and insanity; how to, in bad times, stop making art or react polemically. The idea of a hand-made book-object arose in 2000, as a need to unite and systematize the donated works. The collection includes more than 300 items (drawings, collages, prints, computer prints, photographs), by Belgrade and Novi Sad artists, but also contributions from anonymous creators, exhibition visitors, friends, children, rabbit admirers and fans. The formidable material and the endeavour resulted in an imposing book, with the rabbit fur cover. Due to its weight and dimensions (51 pages and 15 kilograms), a special wrought iron stand (“cradle”) was made for N. Džafo’s book, inspired by an illumination from a manuscript book kept in the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb. As an integral part of the on-going project The Rabbit Who Ate a Museum, the book has grown, experienced changes, followed the flows in its exhibition activity, but is now ready to separate and continue its own life as an independent entity.
© Cultural Centre of Belgrade, the October Salon Collection and the artist
Purchase Contract: III-5-385/16.11.2016.
Inventory No. 1456
Photo: Milan Kralj, installation view 48th October Salon
Selected Bibliography:
48th October Salon, Micro-Narratives. Cultural Centre of Belgrade, 2007
Nikola Džafo: Lepus in fabula, Feb. 23 – Mar. 15, 2011, catalogue of the solo exhibition, text by curator Živko Grozdanić, Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, Novi Sad, 2011
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nikola Džafo (1950, Novi Sad, Serbia) graduated in painting (1978) and received a master’s degree (1981) from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. He conceived and initiated the Led Art Group (1993), co-founded the Centre for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade (1995) and the Led Art Multimedia Centre in Novi Sad (2000). In the basement at 5, Grčkoškolska Street, with a group of young artists from Novi Sad, he started Art Clinic, a project with the utopian idea that art can change and heal the world, which in 2013 was transformed into SHOCK Cooperative. He has presented his works at a number of group and solo exhibitions throughout Serbia and the region. He won the Politika Award (2012) for the exhibition Lepus in fabula, MSUV, Novi Sad, in 2011. Lives and works in Novi Sad. More information at http://www.dzafo.com/