ZLATKO ĆOSIĆ: STILL ADJUSTING
January 25 - March 22, 2014, Gallery 210, UMSL

We inhabit multiple worlds. They seem to come in pairs: inner/outer, old/new, major and minor, forking endlessly into multiple realities and multiple selves. Identity grabs on where it can, trying to form a connective tissue. Imagine, then, the complex inner landscape of Zlatko Ćosić, with roots in a crumbling, socialist Yugoslavia and a free-form, capitalist America. Imagine the broken spaces, the interrupted stories, and the jump-cuts needed to bridge them. Yet, in our own fragmentation we can understand why Ćosić had to become an archaeologist of the self. We can imagine him sifting through the rubble of experience, examining mismatched puzzle pieces in the light of a new day. We resonate as he fashions dissonant memories into a fragile harmony. Only art can do this. And in this show, Ćosić’s unique power creates a microcosm where accident and chaos are managed, felt, and transformed, and where the artist and his audience can, in spite of it all, become whole.

Van McElwee, Media Artist



Ćosić relates to his camera not unlike a draftsman does to pencil and paper. Though his MFA—from St. Louis's Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, Washington University, where he now teaches—is in video art, his work feels less sympathetic toward the spectacle-driven technological effects of that medium than toward the traditional practice of drawing, with its human element, lyricism and sense of gesture. His ability to render clear and relatable the complexities of his own story and those of his lost homeland speak to this point. He can convey a breadth of emotions and psychological nuances in, say, an offhand shot of running creek water, whose currents read as an elegiac composition being drawn and erased before the viewer's eyes.

Jessica Baran, Art in America, July 7, 2014



Gallery 210 opens 2014 with Still Adjusting, an exhibition of video and installation by St. Louis artist Zlatko Ćosić. The exhibition opens January 25 at 4PM with a slide presentation by the artist in the Gallery 210 Auditorium. A reception for the artists follows immediately afterward.

The works in the exhibition, featuring seven experimental and non-fiction short videos and an installation, are inspired by the artist’s experience of dislocation resulting from 1990s conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

Addressing the themes of dislocation, identity, immigration, culture shock and assimilation Ćosić states, “I feel as if I am part of a performance, caught between my past and the present. I adjust how I communicate with the people who are not from my culture. At the same time, this other society has altered the way I communicate with people from my country.” (excerpt from the exhibition essay What’s in a Name by Dana Turkovic, Curator of Exhibitions, Laumeier Sculpture Park).

Zlatko Ćosić is a video artist born in Banja Luka, Yugoslavia (present day Bosnia and Herzegovina). He earned a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art from Washington University St. Louis and a Bachelor of Arts in Video Production and Interactive Digital Media from Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri. Ćosić’s artwork includes short films, video installations, theater projections and live audio-visual performances. Ćosić’s work often relates to issues of identity, immigration, the complexity of living in a new environment, the acceptance of cultural differences, and the necessity of establishing dialogue among people. His artwork was shown in over thirty countries, for which he has received a variety of recognition.

This exhibition is supported by grants from the Regional Arts Commission and the Missouri Arts Council with additional assistance from the Center for the Humanities at UM-St. Louis.

"Still Adjusting" exhibition is curated by Terry Suhre, director and curator, Gallery 210



INSTALLATIONS:

Re-Birth, Without A Number, Colorboarding, Identity Artifacts, Temporary Graffiti: Banja Luka-St. Louis, 31 Days, While Standing I Wonder If and Only The Chimney Stays



EXHIBITION DOCUMENTATION (4:00)   [VIDEO]



PRESS

:: Art in America - review by Jessica Baran, July 7, 2014
:: NPR/St. Louis Public Radio - Cityscape - St. Louis Artist Zlatko Ćosić On His Exhibition 'Still Adjusting'
:: NPR/St. Louis Public Radio - Cityscape - interview (mp3 audio)
:: St. Louis Magazine - Seven Questions by Thomas Crone
:: What’s in a Name by Dana Turkovic, Curator of Exhibitions, Laumeier Sculpture Park
:: The Current - ‘Still Adjusting’ at Gallery 210 explores artist Zlatko Cosic’s experiences in U.S and Yugoslavia by Cate Marquis
:: UMSL Daily - Cosic’s Gallery 210 show examines cultural adjustments by Rachel Webb
:: Webster Today - Video Art Exhibit by SOC’s Ćosić at Gallery 210
:: About "Still Adjusting" by Jessica Witte
:: On Zlatko Ćosić's "Still Adjusting" poem by Jeanna M Szuch
:: Zlatko Cosic: Still Adjusting Closing Saturday by Bailey Dolenc