Video Interview with Aleksandar Maćašev

Aleksandar Maćašev doesn’t mince matters: "The real center of power in Serbia is the pharmacist. Give the people a lot of tranquilizers and they will not complain." According to the Belgrade based artist and graphic designer, a lot of Serbian people are on drugs.

[img]http://prettycoolpeopleinterviews.submarinechannel.nl/img/item_alexandermacasev.jpg[/img]

Aleksandar Maćašev came to Belgrade in the beginning of the nineties, a turbulent time of war, protests and isolation. This period had a big influence on Maćašev, who has a very critical attitude to politics and who uses his art to grow awareness on tricky issues like mass communication and corruption.

Belgrade may have a very lively nightlife, a lot of Serbs have lost their spirit as a consequence of the recent geopolitical events. Maćašev sees it as his duty to wake up his fellow citizens from their slumber of indifference.

[img]http://www.submarinechannel.com/_src/men-in-drag1.jpg[/img]

His Joseph Goebbels Project really freaked people out. Not surprisingly, because it consisted of posters and large billboards of the father of propaganda, the Nazi-minister Joseph Goebbels. The portraits were made out of logos of big media companies. Not very subtle maybe, but very effective indeed.

We teamed up with the forthcoming artist for a day and he showed us around in his hometown. Despite his serious mission, Maćašev keeps his head up.

See the full interview here:
http://prettycoolpeopleinterviews.submarinechannel.nl/interviews/item/31

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Pretty Cool People Interviews is an ongoing series of video interviews on SubmarineChannel. Previous interviewees are: visual artists Miranda July and Erwin Wurm; filmmakers Mike Mills, Taika Waititi and Anna Biller; Barcelona based visual effects company Studio DDT; motion designers Olivier Marquezy and Alex Courtes (of Alex & Martin); animator Valerie Pirson; and photographer Martha Cooper.