The dialogue of two artists presented at this exhibition is based on the realization that they had created two works of art, two hands, independently of each other, in a different historical moment and in a different place but with the ideological basis and result which brought them into the relation of mutual similarity.

Soskic's work was shown for the first time at his solo exhibition at the Roman studio Mario Diacono at the performance/installation entitled “Il mondo e rico, l’uomo e povero”, in 1980. Art historian and critic Jesa Denegri in his text written for the exhibition says: “The work is obviously filled with symbolic, ritualistic, mystical, metaphysical connotations, but at the same time also specific cultural and political connotations created at the height of the serious turmoil of the Italian art scene in the moments of the dramatic and far-reaching change of artistic ideologies from the militant 1968 activist Arte povera which was already nearing its end then and the beginning of the postmodernist trans-avant-garde integrated into the renewed economy of the previously shaken order of the art market”.

The work of Selman Trtovac, the Black Hand was created in the mid 1990s. The Black Hand is in fact the cast of the hand of an actual murderer and it was created for an exhibition at the Academy in Düsseldorf where the artist was studying at the time. About this work Denegri says: “This work is almost a sublimation of a superindividual and common generational existential experience it is one of the most memorable artifacts of an entire important, although insufficiently recognized and evaluated, emergence of a series of young local artists formed at Beuys' Düsseldorf Academy, by Rinke, Kunellis and other leading artists (...)”.

Art historian Ivana Benovic in her text writen for the exhibition states that Šoškić and Trtovac had in one conversation together declared themselves as artists from the Balkans, and this is the only local determinant which they mention. They have both being living and studying abroad – Soskic in Italy (where he came into contact with Pistoletto, Kounellis, Merz and other representatives of Arte povera) Trtovac in Germany (where he studied at the famous Academy in Düsseldorf and came into contact with Rinke, Kounellis, and mostly with what could be defined as the mental legacy of Joseph Beuys). Yet by declaring themselves as artists from the Balkans, they are forcing the interaction of their works, as both hands were created in seeking the physical, visual expression not just for the Zeitgeist, but also for the genius loci.

Exhibition in Arte gallery will last until September 15th.