INTERVIEW Dante Buu: It is important to move forward

Artistic practice and activities of artists, storytellers and performers, Dante Buua is an intimate story about both personal and personal experiences of his close friends, colleagues, people with whom he shares the same or similar spiritual space, through the medium of long-term performance, but also through embroidery, photography and video work. Guided by the principles of love and resistance to repressive behavior and conditioning, directed towards the desacralization of various normative frameworks that narrow or erase the space of freedom, his work is inseparable from the socio-political context within which it exists.

Long-term performances have recently become dominant in his practice, and in the past year he had the opportunity to show his work in several reference institutions during residencies (at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, CEC ArtsLink in New Orleans) as well as within projects such as No Intermission at the Royal Carré Theater in Amsterdam, organized by of the Marina Abramović Institute. As the winner of the 2021 Milčik Award for young visual artists, he is currently staying in New York for a two-month residency organized by the Institute for Contemporary Art of Montenegro and Residency Unlimited. We talk with the artist about his new works, experiences of participating in the mentioned programs and further plans.

You were one of the representatives of Montenegro at the Biennale in Venice this year, as part of the exhibition The art of holding hands/while breaking through the sedimentary cloud, according to the curatorial concept of Natalija Vujošević. The Biennale is over, and your path after it is quite dynamic, where have you been and what projects have happened?

- The Biennale was really fantastic and very successful, it was an exceptional honor and pleasure for me to represent Montenegro in Venice. I'm rarely slow and lethargic, but the year that passes has been really exciting and dynamic. After the Biennale, I returned to Berlin to complete my residency at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, otherwise the Künstlerhaus Bethanien residency program has existed since 1975 and I am the first artist from Montenegro to receive this residency (2021). In early October, I traveled to New Orleans for the CEC ArtsLink residency program in collaboration with Sideyard Industries/Little Red Hand, where I began my new artwork designed as a music and visual album. I recorded the first duet with Tiff Lamson and musicians: Jebney Lewis, Paolo Sartori i Aurora Nealand, while the text of the song is based on the song "Epilogue" by Miroslav Antic. The creation of the musical and visual album will be accompanied by a documentary film. During my stay in New Orleans, I performed a long performance "and you, are you dying happy?" at the Marigny Opera House. At the end of October I traveled to Amsterdam to perform a participatory long-term performance at the Royal Theater Carré, by invitation Marine Abramović and her Institute. I am currently in New York, on a residency that is part of the Milchik Award for Young Artists.

How does it all look and what are your impressions?

- New York is great, at least as far as I'm concerned. The city is pulsating and always alive, which indescribably influences my inspiration and gives an additional drive to move forward. As one of the art centers, it offers countless opportunities to establish professional relationships and expand the field of activity. The Milčik Award, organized by the Institute for Contemporary Art, is of great importance for artists from Montenegro, because it gives an opportunity to leave the European framework, where art is somewhere very institutional, and enter the American understanding of art, which is largely a business. Art, in addition to all, let's call them "ideal" paths and possible solutions that it offers to overcome the problems of the world and the reality we live through the ages, also has that dimension of business that artists need to learn, first of all so that they know how to value their work and not be , conditionally speaking, "deceived" by institutions, museums, galleries and curators - and that their work depends on others, but on Wednesdays it's the other way around.

We mentioned the performance in Amsterdam, at the Royal Carré Theater at the invitation of Marina Abramović. How did the collaboration come about and what was your experience of working with her and her team? How was your presentation?

- In Amsterdam, I performed a new long-term participatory performance in which the audience and I embroidered the sentence "in my language, I dream of your mouth, my Alexander". The audience was invited to be with me among 200 meters of textiles, about 4000 needles and over 95000 meters of thread, in order to turn a dream into the public through embroidery in the course of 33 hours over a span of 6 days. The performance project "No Intermission" was realized under the curatorial leadership of the Marina Abramović Institute, in which, in addition to Marina Abramović, 10 other renowned world artists participated, including myself. Marina personally invited me to participate in "No Intermission" and I have to admit that it is extremely educational, exciting and full of love to collaborate with Marina and her team, the very fact that my performance was seen by thousands and thousands of people, that all the audience together created with me, my work speaks of the fact that this is really someone who is quality and successful in what he does.

When will the Montenegrin audience have the opportunity to see you? Do you have anything planned?

- To my great regret, the cooperation with the Music Center of Montenegro, which was supposed to happen next year, was canceled in a very bizarre way. A way that looks more like gossip than any kind of professional relationship. I received information that the Ministry of Culture of Montenegro warned the Music Center of Montenegro not to call me and hire me to do a performance as part of their program. My signing of the petition "For solidarity/against the culture of violence" was cited as the reason, which is true. I signed the petition, and I still stand by the fact that we should always fight against violence in all spheres of private and public activity. However, where this whole story becomes even more bizarre, is that the additional reasons for the ban were stated: my tendency towards incidents and scandals during the opening of the Montenegrin pavilion in Venice. Which is an absolute lie, because such information does not exist anywhere, not in any of the world and local media where they write about me.

The meeting I had with the business director of MCCG Isidoro Damjanović in September, before my trip to America, was extremely fair and professional. Isidora, and then artistic director of MCCG Mirjana Zivkovic, did everything to make me feel welcome at MCCG and we sincerely and seriously laid the foundations for cooperation in the spring of 2023.

But I signed the petition in early December, and chaos ensued.

In your opinion, what is the cause of such a phenomenon, that the work of artists is censored and disqualified for expressing an opinion against threats, against violence? Isn't that a terrible paradox, if we are talking about culture and art?

- It seems to me that somewhere the problem lies in the universally accepted understanding that public institutions and public funds that belong to all citizens of Montenegro are the private property of individuals. That with the position at the head of the institution, not all but the majority, behave as if they have the power to determine what who can do and what who can say. And that everything is taken personally. And that you should worship anyone who is not worthy. Who is not "good". Of course, laws should be respected, but freedom of speech should not be questioned, especially when it comes to violence. The atmosphere of fear and blackmail that is currently happening in art and culture in Montenegro does not at all resemble the European ideals that we strive for and that are promised to us. This entire event speaks of a continuous flow of autocracy in Montenegro, which is much more similar to the political system of Putin's Russia than to Western democratic European countries. Signing a petition as such, and any form of criticism of the government, is nothing negative. On the contrary, it only says that I care about Montenegro moving forward and becoming better than it is.