Elliott meanders...: Džeko Hodžić’s “Apocalypse”

(History Museum of BiH: part 1)

I paid a visit to History Museum of BiH the other day, after having passed it on numerous occasions. The first time I walked by, I thought it was closed, or more truthfully, shuttered…but no, it’s just never truly recovered from the being on the front line of the war.

It is located on the street that was named “sniper alley” during the war, and is directly across from the former Yugoslav army complex, now a portion of which is the home of the US embassy. The facade is crumbling; the concrete steps are in shambles. There’s a framework of a German World War II glider located outside the entrance, which quite frankly doesn’t look like it was intended to be there, but the doors to museum are open. And on this wet September afternoon, if nothing else, it provided an escape from the perpetual drizzle.

The website “Tripadvisor” didn’t have any glowing reviews of the place, or rather, some tourist reviews had confused this shadow of a museum originally dedicated to the rise of Tito and Communist era with its next door neighbor, the Museum of Natural History, which I’ve read had been shuttered for several years due to lack of funds for staff salaries and much needed renovation, though it reopened in 2015.

The colossal three panel work that stands in the lobby is Džeko Hodžić’s “Apocalypse”. (As a non-art history major it looks like a visceral and horrific hybrid of Hieronymus Bosch and Marc Chagall.) On another wall, there is a collection of preliminary sketches and designs that the artist rendered in the 20-year process of creating the piece.

The accompanying plaque only gave a few brief details regarding the Bosnian painter, and did not discuss the painting. Luckily I was able to find a few sources on the internet that give a description of the work. (Of course, if it’s on the internet, it must be true!) An additional caveat: given that the websites are in Bosnian, you’ll have to take my summary/paraphrase of the sometimes cryptic Google-translate-bot language with a grain of salt. So here it goes:

“Apocalypse” is a three-part piece revealing the ruthlessness and senselessness of war, and the suffering associated with it. Though technology and weaponry may change, mankind’s age-old propensity for war and its devastating consequences are always the same: man becomes an animal, whether it’s a beast of a victim.

The left portion is predominantly green symbolizing day, while the right portion is dim red representing night, mysticism, and the principals of Eros and Thanatos are intertwined. The center piece, which consists of real bone fragments, cloth, old shoes, and wiring, represents a grave with a vulture overhead, that at times, turn into human form, wanting to rule the world (rather than the creator).

The presence of animal images on each of the panels uses mythical symbolism to personify man and represent his different characters: fearful and vulnerability white lamb, which offers hope of salvation, is set against the atrocity of wolves and vultures threatening attitude. There is also a reference made to “The Speech of the Birds,” an epic Sufi poem by the Persian poet Attar.

Even if one didn't have any historical context of Bosnia's recent past, one could easily deduce that something horrific had happened here.