The work »I am baking bread that cannot be eaten« is questioning the way artists in our society are providing daily bread for themselves. Why one accepts (as if it were an axiom) so easily the division of activities into those suitable to make a living and those that are just »for the soul«? What does the artist gain and what does he/she loose when providing daily bread outside of art? The installation consists of a multitude of breads, each of which is »enriched« with clay sculptures. Vera Stanković makes these breads as an attempt of synthesis, of bringing closer together a »normal« way of supporting oneself (providing daily bread outside of art) and »pure« artistic creation. The obsessive act of baking such breads can be read as a form of protest, or a preparation for the change - an initiation into a new, yet unknown model of living and working.
In Serbian, exists an expression: »sure bread«. The expression refers to a job that provides one with security and good life. »To take out one‘s child on the road« used to mean (in mine and many other families) to enable one‘s child to get a »sure bread«. In my family, art has been always treated as something beautiful, useful for the development of a personality of a child, but also as an activity that possesses not even one molecule of certainty. This is why in the same time, it was treated as a source of danger. Such an ambivalent attitude towards art was summarized in one of the sentences my father used to repeat frequently: »The most important thing is that you ensure a »sure bread«. And art can always be a hobby.« Today, I am wondering if this attitude towards art that has been enhaled for so long, can ever be changed?
Vera Stanković