Denis Haračić Ⓒ Zlata Hodžić
Could you briefly introduce yourself and describe your approach to art?
My name is Denis Haračić (born 1991) and I am a visual artist from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. My approach to art is very descriptive. I tend to stick to narratives that I can explore through anthropomorphic depictions via printmaking, painting and drawing, but I also invest myself deeply in digitalising my art, creating animation and soundscapes. I find that every form of expression, be it classical art, digital pieces or sound, allows us to have different levels of interpretation. In the end, art is a very structured way of communication and combining different mediums in the exhibition space helps creating a more complete communication device.
What are your main inspirations and how do they influence your work?
There are many artists whose work I really enjoy and find inspiring, but I would say that I don’t necessarily find so many visual influences in their work. What I have discovered though, is that music plays a very strong motivational role in my process. I can be more influenced by the way a well-crafted piece of music is laid out then by a strong visual narrative. Sometimes I listen to something, and I say that’s it, that is how I want my art to strike. I want this level of coordination, skill, technique but also for all of those parameters to be subtly, to fit in together and let the main idea behind the work speak. So, in order to make something I need a well written and expressed idea too. I don’t think this connection to music shows on my work, but this is really how I feel and go about it. Let’s just say I try to translate the idea of multi structured quality into all my pieces. With all that being said, of course, sometimes I just make something for the sake of it, exploring a visual trait or technique for example.
In your recent work « Motion Leaps », your GIFs are created from « different cycles of digitally enhanced portraiture », which lead you to « create an image with raw emotion ». Can you tell us a bit about this process ? How do you chose these portraits ?
Yes, this little cycle I created at the beginning of last year was also a response to earlier work, like „The scream“ which was exhibited at the Museum of Now, Berlin in 2019. Since my work can often be repetitive, I tend to come back to some projects and digitally enhance them, play with them, and try to animate them, making them function as key frames. This step sometimes takes the initial artwork out of its original context, but I also feel that it helps create a new, exciting version of the work. I want my creative process to be as open as possible to everything that might intrigue me.
As for the reference to „images with raw emotion“, I think that this is just the perk of creating GIF-s and not „over-animating“ things to higher complexities. GIF-s are very raw as far as animation goes and that format gives me a chance to achieve visuals that come down to their very essences, with no space for further smoothening or overhauling. So, semantically they get to stay as raw as possible too.
Glitch Red, Glitch Blue and Portrait, GIFs, Denis Haračić Ⓒ Courtesy of the artist
How do « 16 divided by 4, Phase 4 Reintegration » or « The Witness » works of art relate to the GIF type of work of art ? Did one lead to another ?
As I said, they don’t necessarily lead to the creation of GIF-s, but given that my work consists of so many slight repetitions it is just a fertile ground to play with animation. For me there is a thrill in bringing an image to life and I surely treat it as an entirely new project. Rarely do I intend to have images both ways, still and animated, from the beginning, sharing a singular concept. At the creation of “16/4” I kind of knew I would use bits and pieces of it for other projects. For example, modified frames from the work highlighting some brush strokes are used in a recent video work of mine, overlapping and creating something completely new. I am pretty sure that this kind of “recycling” of work, is very common in the digital world. In my work it`s present the same way other art professionals might have their galleries of samples to use for the creation of games, movies or working in the digital art industry in general.
(Right) “The Witnesses”, etching and aquatint, 65 x 65 cm per piece, 2017. © Denis Haračić
(Left) "16 devided by 4, Phase 4 Reintegration", mixed media, 2020, produced during the COVID lockdown. © Denis Haračić
In 2017, two software engineers launched the CryptoPunks collection - a NFT collection with 10 000 uniquely generated characters - now worth thousands of dollars each and placed in auction houses like Sotheby's. You seem to be « excited that the newfound approval for crypto-art communicates it as real art pieces ». How do you think visual artists and digital artists coexist in this new market and do you think visual art is threatened by this new form of art?
To be honest, my initial excitement came with the first emerging NFT- market, which I tried very hard to be part of. But that market was as high up on gatekeeping as it gets and I realised very soon that it would be almost impossible for me as visual artist with no influential gallery representation to join a well curated platform. I saw NFT as a way of verifying existing digital art, because earlier it was not an asset on the market, and personally I saw a way out of my own problems. Bosnia and Herzegovina, where I am from, is still very much troubled with art export. We have one of the worst bureaucratical export processes on planet earth, where not one step is digitalized and it can take up to a month to get paperwork done for an exporting work. That’s the reason why we lack behind in being any part of the global art market, so a new way to create, verify and trade art that bypasses this nightmare, got me understandably excited. That was the true value I saw in it, and that’s the value that still holds some impressions over me.
I don’t really see NFT being a danger to real art, especially since it got to be misused so much as just another way for trading crypto. In most NFT-s the artistic aspect is secondary, the financial one being primarily important. I am now part of a curated platform for almost half a year but I haven’t really minted any NFT-s. I guess for me it’s important to make true art work. If I see it as a real and legitimate digital art piece of mine, I will mint it.
Do you have any upcoming projects that you would like to mention?
Yes, sure. For this year I am working on 2 unique solo shows, one being at the newfound Bosnian gallery Manifesto and one being probably at a new gallery in Belgrade, Serbia. I am very excited for the whole process, and I am creating them from scratch with both, visual and sound pieces. Also, there is a plan to move along my existing show “Reject” which premiered in December last year at the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It’s the biggest show I have ever created and I still want to expand the cycle of works. If I happen to make an NFT along the way as well, so be it. Other than that, I might be part of some upcoming group shows in Bosnia and Herzegovina and hopefully the region too.
Denis Haračić, Reject, Historical museum of BiH Ⓒ Zlata Hodžić
Denis Haračić : Official website | Instagram
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