The title Nihil Obstat is indicative of Darja Bajagić’s work with the moral judgments, censorship and limits of endurance. As the artist herself describes her process: “[…] in today’s society, drowning in excess information, the urge to over-define everything has resulted in the vapidness of meaning. I explore this in my artworks.  At the same time, in this mirroring they resist assimilability through collage - putting together things that may not have anything in common. So yes, in the end the not-knowing is vital.”¹ Her works are challenging in that they confront the observer with violent tales and extreme political events.

In her first comprehensive exhibition GORGEOUS (2020), her practice was described in a suitably drastic way as “born in the autopsy of the Greenbergian cadaver.”² In her examination of polar opposites she reveals similarities that many don’t want to see.

Nihil Obstat is a phrase taken from the Roman Catholic Church that serves as a kind of seal of content purity for a book. The gesture of granting this seal, shows the inherent criticism of existing doctrines that Bajagić exercises in her art.

Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2021 (translation: Virginia Dellenbaugh)