Straža na Rajni
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- Watch on the Rhine
- Straža na Rajni
- 1994
- color photograph
The photo of an older man standing naked on a roof shows Tomislav Gotovac during a 1994 performance in Zagreb. For this performance, Gotovac spent several hours on the roof of the modernist pavilion occupied by the Croatian Association of Artists, standing in a pose reminiscent of Renaissance standing sculptural portraits by Michelangelo as well as depictions of mythical guardian figures, looking towards the ongoing military hostilities that gripped Croatia at that point during the Yugoslav Wars.
With his title for this performance, “Watch on the Rhine,” Tomislav Gotovac was making reference to the synonymous American film starring Bette Davis from 1943, which has to do with German resistance to National Socialism. He reinforced this reference to a past event—the experience of which, it had long been hoped, would have taught people something that would prevent future wars—by deliberately locating his performance atop a building that Zagreb’s Muslim minority had used as a temporary mosque for a brief period during the 1940s. On this, Gotovac commented: “I was a mosque guard.” As such, the artist’s naked body appears within eye- and earshot of real fighting—not only incapable of putting up any meaningful resistance against possible attack, but actually seeming entirely defenseless and painfully vulnerable. K.R.
With his title for this performance, “Watch on the Rhine,” Tomislav Gotovac was making reference to the synonymous American film starring Bette Davis from 1943, which has to do with German resistance to National Socialism. He reinforced this reference to a past event—the experience of which, it had long been hoped, would have taught people something that would prevent future wars—by deliberately locating his performance atop a building that Zagreb’s Muslim minority had used as a temporary mosque for a brief period during the 1940s. On this, Gotovac commented: “I was a mosque guard.” As such, the artist’s naked body appears within eye- and earshot of real fighting—not only incapable of putting up any meaningful resistance against possible attack, but actually seeming entirely defenseless and painfully vulnerable. K.R.