The existence of media that are "monitoring authorities" is extremely important, he says in an interview with Vijesti Jugoslav Vlahović, illustrator and caricaturist of NIN for several decades. Courage, he claims, is "an important category, especially in the media sense."
Courage was also the theme of this year's International Caricature Festival, where Vlahović won first prize. The winning caricature is from his Flower Power cycle, which the artist calls "a cartoon anti-war post-hippie utopia".
"Courage is again a category that is becoming very important. The world has become quite polarized both at the global and local level, and expressing one's position openly has become really important, it has also become rare, and it is not easy either... There are plenty of topics, from some global, regional and local political, to environmental . The world is "simmering" and the next moves, global and local, are increasingly important. People, I would say, are not even aware of it. For a while, everything was kind of numb, as if people were 'fed up' with everything, but the time has come again when some important decisions will be made," explains Vlahović.
His versatile career is not easy to summarize. Since 1978, he has been a full-time illustrator-caricaturist, and since 1984, he has been the illustration editor of NIN. He was a professor at the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade. At the end of the 60s, he founded the band "Family Factory of Black Bread". Fans of rock music also know him as the author of all covers of "Fish Stew". He also designed the famous stylized herringbone, which is the trademark of that group. Collaborator of many well-known world magazines, behind him are dozens of exhibitions, awards...
“I have 10.000 published drawings. I don't know how many NIN covers. There were, I admit, interesting solutions and they will all be in one monograph. I was admitted to NIN at the end of the 70s of the last century, together with Aleksandar Tijanić, Bogdan Tirnanić i Dragan Jovanović. It was a fantastic generation. I started working on the column South of Grizelje, Dragan Markovic was the editor-in-chief. I have to admit that NIN always had serious journalists, only the best came. It is encouraging that even now some young forces are coming, fighting young people with attitude and courage", says Vlahović.
He reminds that "NIN, thanks to good journalism, has never lost a case before the court". The value of a media outlet, Vlahović says, is measured by its "capacity for monitoring what is happening, basing it on facts, presenting reasoned criticism...". In every society, he says, "someone must observe carefully and fairly".
"Recently I was asked 'Is NIN now the most positioned since its existence?'. I answered 'On the one hand, it is, and on the other hand, it is not, because now the facts are the most oppositional'. We deal with facts and maintain ourselves. Unfortunately, we don't get very far with circulation, but we survive. The government needs to be provoked, we must not leave the fox guarding the hen house. Life consists of mini-revolutions", says the doyen of newspaper cartoons.
He says that cartooning is "everyday active art, a combination of journalism and art." This was also one of the reasons why he chose that artistic expression, and not "studio art".
Vlahović claims that it is important that cartoonists still have their places, their newspapers where they can publish.
"I don't do political cartoons, I'm more of a cartoonist illustrator, a humorous artist who also does some other things. It's not a matter of cowardice, I've taken that graphic metaphorical indirect position from the beginning... There's always a topic for us. We still have our places, our newspapers where we can show what we do. There is no value to the cartoon if it is not published. It can be a masterpiece, but if it doesn't find its place in the media, it's not worth much. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer of those places," says Vlahović.
It discourages him that, as a professor at the Academy of Applied Arts, he noticed that "young people are more inert than some earlier generations".
There were, he says, talented people who "chose the anonymity of working in some agencies for better earnings."
“They don't have the fanaticism that we had. To be a caricature, you need to be a fanatic and fight windmills. We don't get big fees, there's no guarantee that you can make a living from it. This is why many young talented people leave those initial successful careers and go to agencies. There they do more lucrative jobs, but they become anonymous. The caricature is looking for a personality, a personality that has the attitude and strength to popularize the value system it represents," Vlahović claims.
Among his "skills", he says, he also includes "the ability to oppose without offending the interlocutor". Vlahović sees the future of the world as "a combination of solidarity and ecological movements". The strengthening of the "greens", he claims, inspires optimism, "despite everything else that is happening on the global stage".
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