darja bajagić

“I’m going to sit in a dark corner and cry about how bad my life is even though my daddy is rich”

Who is Darja Bajagić?

“Gruesome... Violent...” Some guy opens with on ArtForum. In Interview Magazine Bajagić describes her work as “Softgore”. I like that. Like if Courtney Love were duetting with Lana Del Rey. It’s very tumblr, in a good way. In the way that I already know she’s hot, and cool, but was maybe a little too in the fringe to be appreciated at school. And the way that she uses tumblr tells me she knows that. The platform that shaped so many of us as teenage girls. Whilst men jump to the violence committed, we focus on the female pain that’s left. See the beauty and hold onto it; through all of the sexualization other people’s gazes have placed on them. We see the softness that’s required, for the violence to reach their gory heights. It could be one of us.

Bajagić’s art often centers missing teenage girls, using their own selfies they uploaded to the internet.

These young girls are just playing the game; they didn’t write the rules. It’s not their fault. Are girls not supposed to like sex, and know what to do with our bodies, and take hot nudes; or if we do so, even if we enjoy it, are we just being used? Should we go back sixty years and all stay prudes? Then women wouldn’t be revered for their brains, only their beauty and agreeability. No matter what you do, as a woman, you’re doing something wrong: something that a man can use as an excuse to hurt you. All we want is to view our own body through our own lens, not someone else’s. Some men find it hard to imagine we can see ourselves outside of their gaze. But we are not prizes to be won. We have our own purpose. Our own urges. Our own sexual desires.

It's the girls conducting the game in Bajagić’s first solo show, c6ld c6mf6rt; canvases stuck together creating the paths, numbers plastered on top of these board games. The paths are dark, like the future: you can’t see through, or how large a step to take. In one piece, if I go one way, I’m enticed to the dark side with the (false) promise of cookies teasing you to open up inside, whilst on the right, I’m faced with two girls who just jumped out of a j-14 photo shoot and look very convincing, with the show’s hot female devil mascot in the middle, set to turn me around and into the dark side. Either way, I’m putty in their hands; to please them. Either way, we’re all stuck playing God’s game. In another one of the pieces, it’s like sliding doors: one way, a teen from brat magazine has got her hands on her head, shocked, playfully telling me off, as if she’s playing my game (yet tiny print next to her reminds me that’s just an illusion: “you should hear the names the voices in my head are calling you”); and the other way I’m being outwardly seduced with sex, as the chosen image evolves to an ad from the back pages of Playboy, knife between titties and all. And in the next piece, a selfie of a young woman posing to impress, seductively staring down the camera, sits in the top right, next to a headshot where the woman’s face has been blacked out. In the bottom left, the same woman now smiles as she slightly lifts her early-noughties denim mini-skirt, however the face next to her is now blacked out in a BDSM mask, instead of dehumanized via sharpie. The images are taken from places where these commodified girls would be pitied; yet neutralize their surroundings, and magically, they’re the ones in the driver’s seat. After all, it’s the girls who have the goods. No one remembers the guy porn stars.

I can’t keep from scrolling.
Gosh, she’s done a lot in three years. God, she gone dark quickly.

From the pictures, I hadn’t even noticed the letters from serial killers to their young besotted fangirls; all the murderabilia hidden in c6ld c6mf6rt. Her work is purposefully ambiguous: you almost have to hunt for the sexual undertones, and when you find it, you can’t unsee it. Then ask yourself why. Why is it sexual? Why were you looking for it to be in the first place? And as these thoughts are percolating, you find the words of a murderer at the same time. I shut my laptop, my eyes wide.

In 2013, when she was still studying, the head of her department offered to pay for her therapy, after viewing her video, Sample XXX Puzzle - Pin-up LandTM Cum-centration. It’s one of the first things almost all articles about her cite, using it as an entryway to namedrop, and say Yale; yet they don’t appear to have watched the avant-garde video, which I’ve located on some random porn site. Whilst I don’t think I fully get it (and the cartoon of the girl sucking a growing dick next to it is distracting), the first half’s flashes of a dominatrix, and other women, and options for BDSM underwear over a porn website, feels like commentary on how easily accessible this world is now. Nudes are the new pin-ups.

In a throwback to one of the earliest artforms, a (presumably male) ceramic caterpillar chases its mate across the screen, marking the middle of the film in a reminder that this is all natural; this is the technological evolution of our survival-based instinct to mate. When a porn screenshot fills the screen again, a balloon floats in to cover the girl’s face, not the man’s (as is usually the case), for she’s in control of her own privacy now. Then appears Mila Kunis, along with an anonymous friend (a replicate of Mila’s face covers hers). She’s the dream girl, the fantasy you act out in your bedroom, where you run into her and her random friend (who’s face you never fully create in your head, but she’s just as hot as Mila, her twin, you might say). A large image of Mila’s face slides over the top, and once positioned, transforms into an image of a piece of paper (another derivative further from reality), with cum on it, of Mila’s picture, and a puzzle piece missing, such that you never get to see her full face on the cummed-on paper. The closest you’ll ever get to the fantasy is cumming on a picture of her face. Her anonymous friend cries crayon tears, before you roll the dice to play another round of the game. A woman’s spread legs fills the screen, a puzzle piece over her pussy blocking the view. Do you have to solve it to get through? It looks kind of like a misshapen dick and balls, spinning around to reveal the goods, keeping the tip on the g-spot. The silhouette of a side-profile appears, with an oversized ear missing, which the pussy fills in, and a circle below turning it into a question mark. A clock, asking “What? Why? How?” adds to the collage. How can a pussy, something so protected and hidden, look so much like something else so common? Is it because it’s so easily accessible? An image of a woman touching herself through some tighty-whitey panties swings in from the top left, and once in the center, enlarges itself to take up the majority of the screen. Her face is hidden in a copy of The Fermata, and she’s not the only one engrossed. An arrow with female eyes inside appears, pointing to the book, before male eyes quickly follow, as if peering over from behind. She doesn’t need him to get turned on, and he wants to see why. Today’s sexual partner is a mere masturbation toy. A clock appears on the right, with a man trying to move the handle to change the time. The male-eyed arrow passes over the book, now uninterested in what the girl actually likes, to spin the entire clock and skip time along. Was this only the foreplay, that females want? I guess so... Finally, we find the owners of the eyes in the arrows, as the photo swings down to top the collage, but you don’t see that it’s them at first. Their eyes aren’t looking at a book, but down at the camera, angled at her pussy, a strip of underwear squeezed thin and stretched to the side, by the guy behind. He's now got what he wants. The screen goes blank; except the clock, which is now adorned with a sad clown, and the puzzle piece in the bottom right corner. A girl’s face appears, in a little oval to the side, like a decoration. She looks sad, like she’s been crying. Over her float down the stage’s comedy / tragedy masks (she’s wearing the tragedy one), before another oval of the same girl winking, with cum in between in eyes joins her twin, beneath the comedy mask. Finally, circular images of girls, and breasts, and pussy, and Scarlett Johansson in Marvel, and ass painted like a football, bounce, bounce, bounce onto the screen, imitating the balls men are obsessed with, both in sports and in women (our ass and titties). Our body parts are just the pieces men chase in their sports games. If they’re good enough, they get to play with them; and when they score, they win.

Porn is the new pin-up.

Does a pussy even shock anymore? We’ve all seen them before. We all know what they look like. Thousands of pussies are no more than a click on an internet search away. Aren’t we all so desensitized to it now? They basically look like someone’s ear. What’s all the fuss about, really? Are we really that scared of the female body? And if we keep going down this path of supposed sin, will we twist around full circle, back to the carefree nudity of Eden; finally forgetting the shame Satan and the Tree of Knowledge taught us.

Whilst images of pussies do still hold power, why not let those who want to, wield it. Why judge them for monetizing a service with strong demand, which society has now normalized? You can’t judge a porn star if you enjoy porn.

We all want to be sexually desired. We can appreciate the power that wields. It reminds me of when I was little, and I first learnt about sex, and didn’t understand why prostitution was seen as such a bad thing. Why should we be ashamed about enjoying our bodies? Why should we hide what turns us on? Women can enjoy taboos too. If men are going to fetishize us, why shouldn’t those who want to, be allowed to profit off being fetishized? Is it because it means acknowledging those yearnings exist? Do we really think the male head of Yale’s art department has never enjoyed a porn video? He’s ashamed he finds enjoyment in something that (he thinks) dehumanizes women; and gets defensive when women rewrite the narrative, using this fact of life to their own benefit. The more he defends, the more guilty he feels; the larger the weakness, the more potent the fetish’s power. After all, it’s the girls who’ve got the goods. Men are terrified of the day they’ll stop being able to profit off women’s bodies themselves. Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, and the more men tell women they shouldn’t be doing it, the more they keep their control.

Why is everyone panicking about nudity again, when nudes were all the rage of the artworld for so long, from the Renaissance until it was snubbed out by the Victorians. What’s the difference between art and porn? The percentage of viewers who get turned on? Artistic directors have been slicing and dicing that line since film began. What does it matter to define it? Everyone will have a different view anyways.

Bajagić grew up on the internet, like me, and the more her protective household shielded her from female sexuality, the more she sought it out, simultaneously learning the importance of hiding it. You went from collecting sexy avatars of your fantasy selves (for me, it was Doll Palace), to porn videos that turned you on. Everything you desired at the click of a button. But you couldn’t tell mum. This was not appropriate for young girls to be viewing, enjoying, using to our advantage. Men will give you anything, if you create the right character. You can be anyone, on the other side of a computer.

By 2015, the murderabilia isn’t hidden, hard to find. She’s gone looking for the cautionary tales, and found the ones that could’ve been her in a parallel universe. Like Amy Fitzpatrick, the missing Irish brunette, also born in the early nineties and raised in a strict branch of Christianity. Another soul who sought c6ld c6mf6rt in the devil’s promiscuity. All those selfies and personal thoughts, that were plastered across the papers next to gruesome headlines, take center-stage in Bajagić’s work. If you flaunt the truth of your sexuality, you’re making yourself bait for every man who has access, even the most unhinged amongst them. As I just learnt. As every girl one day learns. Then it’s the man’s turn to misdirect, as he covers up his sins. The world weeps as it hunts him. Desperate to distance themselves from him. Yet Bajagić’s art forces you to confront the very parts of you that relate to him. You can see why he was compelled to act in such a way, and how your contribution to the most perverse parts of our culture aided him there. Aided Amy to her end. She’s still missing. He’s still winning. Amy’s family stuck in limbo.

And then you ask yourself why. Why did I look at that picture and think “she must be desperate for it”? When all I want is the same thing.

Why is there also a tiny voice inside me, searching for her flaws? And asking myself “why was she wanted so badly?”. “She must be doing something right in these photos.” Am I collecting tips? Really? Why are girls programmed to hate girls? As if life is just one big competition, to be chosen.

I am both her, and the creep who wants to fuck her.

Society has told us how to read images. Bajagić asks us: what if we changed?

Bajagić’s art is no longer built from porn, rather the bones of the works are selfies from girls-next-door, mimicking the watered-down version. The precursor, that every teenage girl who had a Barbie or a Bratz doll went through. That sexual vein still remains, dictating the undertone. In particular, these girls were taken. Girls whose youth and sexuality made them wanted, by the good and the bad. Her series of teardrop-shaped and puddle-shaped sculptures, which form When Blood Runs Dark, (her inclusion with Co-Workers Network), at first glance look like a game at the carnival: target practice atop a dance-floor. But the teardrops are of missing girls, never found; and the puddles they lead to, are composites of various images relating to and of missing girls, found murdered. Apparently, the soundtrack which she curated, was “reminiscent of Medieval chant and war drums”, building up to the aggression with which these girls were stolen. That sexual explosion. I wish I’d seen it in person.

Just like Amy Fitzpatrick, I didn’t anticipate quite how my sexuality could be used against me. I was blind because I wanted to be. You like the attention, up to a certain point. Amy went far less far in these photos than I’ve done. I’m sure she didn’t strip down naked of her own volition in front of her captor. You want to elicit some reaction, but then get upset when it goes too far. Because, bar actively asking someone to touch you, the most you are asking is for them to look, and no photo you post, nor clothes that you wear, means you are asking to be fucked. You can even say yes up to a certain point, before removing your consent.

The majority of her other work from last year sticks to her collage format, reminiscent of the websites we grew up with in the early noughties, with images haphazardly scattered around over a black background. Fragments that initially have no bearing on each other, brought to life with new connotations and meaning. Her own Frankenstein. What would happen if they were links, and you could click on one? You could end up anywhere. Infinite, unknowable possibilities. Would they come with the endless pop-ups, enticing you to enter the unknown, where immeasurable pleasure is promised? But these are just blanks: scare-shots with no bullet.

The numbers are now starting to feel more like a crime scene than a game. Again, it’s the ambiguity she plays. Often, you aren’t even sure what you’re looking at. Two teenage girls are staring up at me, one smiling, one solemn, (both faces I’ve worn endlessly), in her piece Matching Profiles Murdered & Murderer (Brittany Phillips and Amber Wright). One of the girls is missing, and the other murdered her boyfriend. Was I supposed to know from her lack of smile, she was a murderer and not a victim? Bajagić juxtaposed the two girls together, in a game of spot-the- difference.

Another piece, at her Croy Bielsen joint show, Softer Than Stone And Sick In Your Mind, in Berlin, flaunts a selfie of Amy Fitzpatrick giving the finger, and duck-face with a friend, plastered over a teenage-girl’s list of things she hates about her life and herself: Hate Reports, Hate Handwriting, Hate School, Hate Teachers, Hate Snobby People, Hate Schoolwork, Hate House Music, Hate Keyboard, No Life, I Hate Myself. Words every girl has decried hundreds of times. Yet these are not Amy’s words, rather those of Rachel Barber’s murderer (a jealously obsessed babysitter, four years her senior). Below this collage sit Rachel’s parents at their dining table, in front of a portrait of their daughter.

Bajagić is hunting for truth in the grey. Her work uses common personal images taken from their daily context, and forces us to confront the multiple realities at play. You would not guess this girl’s victimhood from her photos. Why am I looking at it differently, because this girl is missing? Why am I consuming content in a persistently sexual way? Why do I see this badly? Because I’m jealous of her sexuality? Because society has taught me the devil is behind sex? Does my negative reaction mean she deserved it? How would her mother look at this photo? Should we try to suppress our sexuality? Rather, learn how to harness it safely. Especially as others are involved.

Whilst we, with society’s training, will have already written a narrative in our heads, when we first encounter a photo in real-life; Bajagić removes these photos from their homes, slices the girls out of them, re-purposed as “blanks”. She is deconstructing the images for us. Suddenly they are partnered off with a whole new cohort and random encounters. Free to live a new life, these girls were robbed of. What is the truth behind them? Even that in itself has infinite, unknowable possibilities. Multiple potential realities. Where would the link take you, were it to transport you back to the moment this photo was captured? How does that change your reaction? The neutrality of these selfies, absent their background, makes them more sexual, I find. No longer are they personal photos to friends taken during her daily life; now they could be taken from anywhere, including a casting couch. By freeing them of their prior perspective, the whole world of possibilities opens up. And yet I still ran to sex.

Removing the context, the image wastes away into abstraction, and becomes nothing, a mannequin on which to design a story. When you are in the grey, you don’t know which way is the light, and which way is the dark. You don’t know where the line is anymore. Bajagić revels in that sterility. In that death of the image. Because in death, there is nothing to lose, and when there is nothing there, there is everything to create. Details you otherwise wouldn’t have noticed or thought about. She puts pieces of nothing together in front of you, so that you can see everything.

In the search for truth, you need to hear every side of the story. You need to see why that teenage girl had so much hate. You need to see how close you are to it, in order to destroy it. You need to actively re-think the way you react to images, in order to not let your own biases warp the truth, or at least reduce it. Is that why Bajagić gives a voice to the murderers? Afterall, her professor tried to silence her voice. Whose place is it to say what kind of art a person should make? Whose place is it to say who should be making art? Picasso was an abusive misogynist who treated women disrespectfully, and yet his art is revered and sells for millions. Where are those who call for separating the art and the artist here? Censorship and taboo are born of fear. Sexuality in children may be suppressed, but it still exists. (I’ve been aware of my clitoris since I was five-years-old at least). We need to acknowledge it, help them remove themselves from harm’s way. In order to stop terrible people, we must understand them; and in order to understand them, we must listen to them. Are these murderers actually evil? Or did they lean into society’s teachings a little too hard? Did they take what they thought was their right? Did they misread the signs? After all, there’s a little bit in each of us. What causes an evil heart?

Bajagić gives us a taste of truth: the questions to ask, but not the answer. For, is there really an answer? The truth is infinite, and we will never be satisfied, rather we must keep searching for morsels, in an attempt to piece the pie together.

Her most recent show was The Offal Truth, in Paris’ New Galerie, featuring collages of pig’s blood, missing girls, and porn. The photos of those magazine girls don’t need to be re-structured into “blanks”, rather they’re already hollow. An empty canvas ready for anyone to impose their own desires on. You want to look away, but at the same time, can’t peel your eyes from them. You’re both as far removed as one can be, yet it’s taken possession of you. You both want it, and fear it, at the same time. But is that just an extension of our feelings about sex? Suddenly, your brain stops working, and your desires kick in. You are no longer the moral, rational person, you like to think of yourself as. The animal is coming out. What are they capable of?

Sex incites extreme emotions, be it desire, or in the heat of orgasm. And when emotions are at the extremes, violence often kicks in. Violence can even make the sexual experience more pleasing, like when Bajagić touches on BDSM, or when I liked my nipples being clamped. She’s exploring the intersection between sex and violence: where they find common ground. Catullus’ everlasting oxymoron: “I hate and I love. Why I do this, you may ask. I do not know, but I feel it happen, and am tortured.” Love is the original wound. Honestly, any strong feeling can probably turn you on in the right moment with the right person, whether that feeling be pain or hate or adrenaline, for they are all just other ways of losing control and any discomfort is juxtaposed with the pleasure, highlighting it. Your hormones can be so narrow minded, especially if your appetite hasn’t been satiated in a while. And some people have a violence fetish. And even smaller number are sadistic to the extreme, where they inflict the ultimate pain, and kill the object of their desire, in complete ownership of another person’s life.

In one of these pieces at the New Galerie, I Am A Bobo Doll (The Clown Blowup Dolls With The Sand In The Bot- Tom, You Hit Them And They Fall Sideways To The Floor But Bounce Back Up...Problem Is Leaks Occur, the masks of comedy and tragedy make an appearance once again, just as they did in her graduate piece. Pornstars are even further removed by their ability to wear masks (fake orgasms). We’re all wearing masks: presenting ourselves as we want. Just take a look at Instagram. Everything is so extreme: a comedy, or a tragedy. You can either laugh, or cry. And we would not know tears of joy, if we did not know tears of sadness. Either way you feel something, and that’s all we really want: to feel something. Make sure we’re still alive. The title of the piece caught me off guard, as the image in your head makes you laugh. She’s right. What if we don’t bounce back up, because each time we’ve lost a part of ourselves. Tragedy swiftly strikes, when you realise the girl floating around the canvas, atop splattered pig’s blood, is Brittany Phillips, who didn’t bounce back up.

She’s smiling up, almost enviously, at the pornstar.

This was the show the writer for ArtForum was commenting on. The one-lined press release reads:

I’m going to sit in a dark corner and cry about how bad my life is even though my daddy is rich

Bajagić blows the fatal stab to the heart: Am I the girl who went missing, or the one who murdered her boyfriend? I’m both, I guess. And now I’m going to sit in a corner and cry about it.