Re-Birth
Zlatko Cosic
Travel across borders and cultures with Zlatko Cosic: Still Adjusting. Cosic’s experimental videos and artifact installation examine Cosic’s background as a young man living in Communist Yugoslavia, later in Capitalist America, and the adjusting of identity that kept him alive.
Identity Artifacts
Zlatko Cosic
Cosic’s installation Identity Artifacts allows viewers to discover the transformation of his identity during the 1990s. After surviving three years in war-torn Yugoslavia, Cosic and his parents were forced out of their native Banja Luka, Bosnia. His parents were put in a refugee camp in Croatia, while Cosic used a fake identity to escape to Belgrade.
A McDonald’s employee card lies among the scattered identities, a reminder of a subsequent encounter with the military police. Cosic was spared from arrest; McDonald’s, an international corporation, was out of police jurisdiction.
Performance videos such as Re-Birth explore Cosic’s many selves, being neither here nor there, past nor present. Other videos give you the feeling of being watched and produce feelings of paranoia, bringing to mind Cosic’s time hiding from the police in Yugoslavia.
Identity Artifacts
Zlatko Cosic
photo: Bailey Dolenc
Cosic invented a new self as a soldier to cross the American border. After settling in the midwest, Cosic struggled to fit in to his new culture and leave his past behind him.
I feel as if I am part of a performance, caught between my past and the present … this other society has altered the way I communicate with people from my country. – Zlatko Cosic
If you have not yet experienced Cosic’s incredible personal journey in Zlatko Cosic: Still Adjusting, stop by the gallery before the exhibit closes Saturday, March 22nd.
Gallery 210 
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