CRITICS
Ours but belonging to the world.
Shared with the people.
Songs and joy without limits.
Zeko guides us with his eye and his ability through that world where the whole
world enjoys and loves something of ours. Beautiful and true document which
remains even when stage lights and city glamour fade. Zeko's photos lead us now
and forever to that enchanting voyage.
Thank you Zeko!
Brian Rasic
www.brianrasic.com
We photographers
are people too, with two eyes, two ears, one nose and a mouth!
For a garrulous tongue can but disturb, photographers often use teeth to
restrain it, that it could not damage something.
The nose only serves to get in the way of a camera, and ears
are divided, one listens for storms and the other for a heart beat...
The eyes also have separate roles - one to look at the
traffic lights and the other at the miracle called life!
Thanks to the one who discovered photo sensitive material,
he is the only witness who tells our story. That story, flowing through the
lens, is a special world, the world which depends on many variables. Those
variables are in front of the lens - where we can never guess how and with what
life will surprise and excite us and behind the lens where also furthermore
life is but the one which a photographer experienced right up to that moment
and stored it into his sub consciousness, his heart and his index finger.
The joy of life guides us every day, really every moment.
This was given to us and we have to keep it and share it with others.
Photography helps us to share the excitement of life with those whom we would
never meet, whom we would never see or hear about because they live across
oceans and mountains and possibly after many generations. That is why, the
photography is exceptional for in its content, it bears colours and shapes,
time, emotions, fiction and moment in which it began as well. It is very
similar to the assumption of the big bang of our beginning, perhaps as a click
of a big photo camera.
With the camera we choose from the diversity that surrounds
us, what is close to us, that which is familiar in our childhood, our cartoons,
songs and movies, bedtime stories and soothing stories while we travel. That
was a lesson of life, how to love, work, aspire to something, joke, learn and
seek and when we are hurt and blood spills, we find a motive to turn our lens
towards the light and wait for new tempestuous moments of life which we will
convey to those beyond a mountain, valleys, sea and time.
I was not present at The No Smoking Orchestra concert, but I
lived in a wave a tsunami that they produced in my friends...
"Bubamara" and turkey and "Zenica" and
"Underground" and Maradona, Manu Chao and girls and Julias and far
away countries, and sleep and dreams, everything is being carried away by that
tsunami and Zeka's photographs. They are witnesses of their existence and
life, although different from what is written in newspapers and heard in the
news.
Thank you Zeko for showing us a different rode through life,
surrounded by joke, humour and freedom.
I thank the person who recognized the value of Zeko's story.
Nebojsa Babic
www.orange.rs
SEGMENT FROM MONOGRAPH
"EMIR KUSTURICA & THE NO SMOKING ORCHESTRA - 10 YEARS "
Masters of the Global Havoc
Distanced from any church and show-biz dogmas, "The No
Smoking Orchestra" are a significant phenomenon of the anti-globalization
movement and an unusual paradox in their country of origin. They are better
known and renowned world-wide, than they are in the country they are putting on
the map with their success. The first ten years with their "Unza
Unza" trade mark sound proved that even in these times of intolerance,
there is an adorable type of dance music against which there is no defense, as
there are no pair of feet that can stay put while they are playing.
"The No Smoking Orchestra" expresses themselves
through sound and vision loosely based on any place of origin. Their live
spectacles don't usually intrigue the audience to search for the story behind
it all, but to look into their own souls for an explanation of how it makes
them feel.
Audience across continents understands "The No Smoking
Orchestra" even though they don't necessarily understand the lyrics. As
author Dr Karajlic said: "They don't understand Verdi's Va, pensiero
either, but everyone sings along because it's a catchy tune!"
They established a connection with the entire planet Earth,
with this new taste for music that is bursting with scenes and sound, where
energy and happiness have replaced the long established music industry
standards.
They are far more energetic than they ever were throughout
in their 25 years career. That's another paradox as members of the group are
now twice as old as they were when they first started their music career. This
came as a consequence of many important factors coming together over time,
including the experience and ability, although they are still not a
philharmonic material. As musicians, their resume is filled only with gigs in
pubs, jazz clubs, and various rock events... On the other hand, their music is
now a lot more cheerful and irresistible. This powerful explosion they have
created on the scene is an attempt for the concert to become a part of a mutual
therapy, such that many crave for.
"The explosive mixture of those TNT sounds" is
impossible to ignore wherever you are: Paris, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, New York,
Kiev, Reykjavik, Sidney, Tel Aviv, Montreal, Sao Paolo, Vienna, Moscow, Mexico
City, Berlin, Madrid or Brussels.
Realizing that they communicate with the world through music
as such, through decibels and frequencies alone without the cliché they come
from, and knowing that they are coming from nothing, from an in-between, a
cosmic void where there are no likes of Verdi and Strauss, they attacked
aggressively and irresistibly without trying to explain themselves! TNSO are
"nomads" by nature, bringers of joy and freedom that every other
nomad posses. Freedom is where they get the power to feel at home wherever they
perform.
TNSO is a culmination of talent and knowledge. As far back as the "Dolly
Bell" movie, Kusturica is a very unusual cultural phenomenon, just as Dr
Karajlic is on the rock scene. They have fused their common qualities through
TNSO in an emotional, unexpected, exciting and once in a lifetime gathering.
Had their attempt at this failed, Emir would have never become one of the
greatest directors.
These two artists are great because they see things in a
different way compared to us mere mortals.
They will be successful for as long as they want to, as the spring of their
inspiration is eternal.
Monograph "Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking
Orchestra" is an impressive documentary about the cities, countries and
continents infected with the "Unza Unza" rhythm where people were privileged to
discover Kusturica's artistic genius. All this was engraved for the future
generations by the skilled owner of a photo camera, Dragan Teodorovic
Zeko, a photographer devoted to his work with Kusturica and Karajlic since the
beginnings of their careers in 1985. Since then he grew from a fan to devoted
supporter and witness to their career whose camera knows where and when to
shoot. Where every miraculous moment makes their era priceless.
Petar Popovic
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