Jusuf Hadzifejzovic
In 1994, Hadzifjzovic was invited to participate in Cetinje Art Biennial in Montenegro, one of the two remaining republics in the former Yugoslavia. He was quite puzzled by this invitation. Hadzifjzovic knew that some of the worst massacres and rapes of Bosnian Muslims in Eastern Bosnia were committed by special paramilitary units of so called weekend fighters formed in Montenegro at the time. These men, who had families and went to work during the week drove 150 miles into Bosnian territory every weekend and looted Bosnian villages and massacred the Muslim population. He decided to create a performance piece which would consist of him renting a taxi cab at the Montenegro border with Bosnia, gathering all his family living in Montenegro at the opening of Cetinje Biennial and snapping a family reunion photograph. In addition to the danger to himself he could expose those members of his family still living in Montenegro to these criminals. Suddenly this usually banal and familiar act is transformed by the tension created in this revelation. "The Fear of Drinking Water" in the ways it combines performance with printmaking is a masterpiece of conceptual art which speaks for itself.