Mersad Berber

About

In recent years, very few artists from the former Yugoslavia have enjoyed international success. Mersad Berber is one of these few, with successful exhibitions in Europe and the United States. The reasons for this comparative neglect are complex. Some of them spring from our own ignorance of the complex Balkan art scene. Some spring from the fact that Balkan artists exist at the crossroads of many cultures ' Western European, Orthodox and Muslim. The bitter civil wars of the 1990s, as Yugoslavia broke up into its component parts, meant that the artists of the region went through an extremely hard time both economically and culturally. It took more than a little courage to surmount these difficulties. Berber is one of the few artists to have emerged triumphant.