The exhibition is based on a Serbo-Croatian language textbook published in 1972. It takes place in a language classroom where two images are projected opposite each other: a color slide and a video projection.
The photograph is an enlargement of the cover of the Serbo-Croatian language textbook from the Assimil collection. This slide depicts a rural landscape. In the foreground, facing us, is a group of men and women in traditional costumes. The two central figures, two women, have been obscured, creating two black silhouettes that seem to “pierce” the photograph.
Opposite, the video projection shows two women dancing, dressed in traditional costumes. The upper and lower parts of their bodies are dissociated, thus desynchronizing the dance movements. A soundtrack featuring lessons and songs from the textbook is played in the room.
Aden, October 1997
“S.C. sans peine” (S.C. without effort): reminiscent of a Serbo-Croatian language learning manual published in 1972. Natacha Nisic installed her work in the premises of a foreign language school in Paris. Words synonymous with cultural exchange and tolerance, but also laden with negative clichés and distorted by idealized images. With this exhibition, the Anton Weller Gallery continues its invitations to unusual venues.”
Le Journal des Arts, December 1997
“Serbo-Croatian Without Effort, an Assimil method published in 1972, is the basis for this exhibition by Natacha Nisic, in an unusual but entirely appropriate venue: the Association for the Promotion of Foreign Languages in France. Here, the artist implicitly refers, not without nostalgia, to a vanished country whose lost identity is now only superficially reflected in a few “folk costumes,” in all their subjectivity.”
