Photo: Tara Radovanović/Tanjug
"Art has won again," Andrej Josifovski, known as the Pianist, tells the "Vremena" portal
The famous architect, street art artist, professor, painter, sculptor Andrej Josifovski Pianista was detained and interrogated for hours at the police station in Majke Jevrosima on Tuesday because he wrote "Mom, how is it that horses rode people" on the pedestal of the monument in front of the Parliament of Serbia.
Once again at liberty, at home, he explains to the portal "Vremena" with what idea he wrote what he wrote, in a completely adequate place.
Photo: Pianista/Instagram
"In my statement to the police, I said that the sentence 'Mom, why did the horses ride people' was a question my father asked my mother about 60 years ago when they were passing in front of the House of National Assembly," Pianista says.
This graffiti, which he wrote on Tuesday afternoon with artificial snow that can be washed off with plain water, Pianista reads his response from the police report, is a reminiscence of that event on the pedestal under the sculptures of the famous sculptor Toma Rosandić, where in his performance horses ride people. That sculpture was the inspiration for such a question.
"So," he says with a laugh, "call my dad, it's not just me."
Encirclement in front of the Assembly
And did it occur to him that they could arrest him for that?
"To be honest, I didn't really think in that direction. I did think that it was the Assembly, that there were always police there, but that it could be resolved on the spot, that they would take my identity card, write a report. However, they respond really well to my performances and installations - every time they make news out of it," says Josifovski.
He says he was completely alone. He thought that it would go like when he made an intervention at the Wolf monument, quoting a minister who said "write as it is written, read as you speak", that he would photograph his graffiti, that it would be washed afterwards and that he would act on it .
However, the police reacted quickly, surrounded him, at one point he counted nine of them.
"So," he says again with a laugh, "I wasn't ready for that."
He has never been taken into custody before, due to his installations and performances, he received calls to report to the police station, so he responded to the calls.
"No damage, no damage"
They kept him in front of the Assembly for an hour and a half, and then he spent two and a half hours in the police station, waiting and answering questions. First, the security of the Assembly appeared, then some people came who did not introduce themselves, but they looked like inspectors, then the police came, and then each of them made some minutes. Then they waited at the police station for the investigation and forensics to be carried out.
Afterwards they came to listen to him, and the best sentence he heard while the policemen were talking to each other was "no damage, no crime".
"I think they were surprised by my snow (spray snow), just like the road workers in Serbia." They don't know how to fight against that artificial snow, because of course I wrote it so that it can be washed away with water. And I'm glad that art won, that the message was sent again and that, as far as that's concerned, everything went exactly as I imagined," Pianista told the "Vremena" portal.
And the policemen, he says, were really cultured. Those unidentified people in front of the Assembly were, admittedly, on the verge of insolence, but he culturally brought them back to tune. One wanted to explain something to him about art, so he gave him a crash course in art history. The other tried to explain to him how he was destroying the city, so he explained to him what he was doing at the festival on Bežanijska kosa. The third started a sad story about how they were going to cut their wages, he told him that it was not his fault.
"In principle," he concludes, "everything was as it should be."
And what is the message at the end of this unexpectedly dramatized performance?
"I think it is very important that the horses go back to where they belong, that they are tethered and that we continue to live with wide, free lungs. Three years ago, on December 18, a luminous monument (in the shape of a phallus) was placed in front of the Belgrade Assembly. I think that day should be celebrated".
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The famous artist Andrej Josifovski wrote on the pedestal of the monument in front of the Assembly of Serbia "Mom, how is it that horses rode people?!"
