Was ist kunst Bosnia and Herzegovina/Heroes 1941 – 1945 is a joint project of the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Republic of Srpska and the IRWIN collective. The collaboration began in 2018, when the exhibition was opened in the Museum of Contemporary Art of RS in Banja Luka. After having been hosted at the Božidar Jakac Art Museum in Kostanjevica na Krki, Slovenia and the MAXXI (National Museum of 21st Century Arts) in Rome, the exhibition arrived to the History Museum BiH, which also holds a collection of portraits of Second World War national heroes and heroines.
he portraits were painted from 1948 to 1952 by the most prominent artists of the time and are kept in the Art Collection of the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In their signature manner, the IRWIN collective used already existing portraits, which they incorporated into massive frames, uniquely constructed for each portrait, offering novel meanings that open up possibilities for a new kind of perspective and interpretation of socialist era heritage.
The IRWIN collective was founded in 1983 by the artists: Dušan Mandič (Ljubljana, 1954), Miran Mohar (Novo Mesto, 1958), Andrej Savski (Ljubljana, 1961), Borut Vogelnik (Kranj, 1959) and the recently deceased Roman Uranjek (Trbovlje, 1961-2022). The IRWIN collective also co-founded the organization Neue Slowenische Kunst and NSK State in Time.
Project coordinator
The Head of the Collection of Artworks at the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Svjetlana Hadžirović