Maja Bajević
I believe more in horoscope than in nationalities
2005
EB66
3-color screenprint
70 x 100 cm
Edition of 100, signed and numbered
Edition A: 55 copies (numbered 1/55 - 55/55, all in portfolios)
Edition B: 35 copies (numbered I/XXXV - XXXV/XXXV)
10 Artists Proofs (numbered AP 1/10 - AP 10/10)
400 Euro (Edition B)
“I believe more in horoscope than in nationalities” is written in bright white sans serif letters on a black surface. Underneath, handwritten and only faintly recognizable, is the reversal of the sentence: “I believe more in nationalities than in horoscope”.
By juxtaposing astrology and national identity, Maja Bajević exposes both concepts as constructs that owe their existence to faith. A statement that corresponds to Bajević’s own experience, as the artist explains in an interview: “I have lived abroad longer than I have lived where I was born, but I was also often reminded that this is not where I belong, not really. It has resulted in a ‘me’ that does not belong anywhere, really. […] The fact that you are without a real home (a feeling of belonging, a country, a house) makes you fragile, but it also makes you see more clearly the society you come from and the ones in which you live.”1
The artist’s contribution to the graphic portfolio Love It or Leave It (EB66) contains a message that was controversially received by the public. Bajević showed the work in 2006 as part of the 47th October Salon Art, Life & Confusion in Belgrade (Serbia) as a large poster in a park in the city, where it was repeatedly daubed with nationalist slogans and damaged.
Printed 2005 by durchDruck, Berlin.
Text: Katrin Seemann
1 Maja Bajević, in: „A conversation between Angela Vettese and Maja Bajević”, in: Angela Vettese (Hg.), Maja Bejavić, Exhib. Cat., Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venedig, 2008, p. 13.