Although you can find his sculptures nowadays in Denmark, Germany, Italy, Greece, Israel, and other countries, Jakub Hubjer from Gorazde is happiest in the workshop of the house in Hubjeri, where he lives with his wife.
He turned part of the property into an open gallery, sculptures made of various materials are everywhere, and he is preparing an exhibition in honor of the great narrator from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Isak Samokovlija. There is an unbreakable link between his love for art, Drina, nature, homeland, childhood friends, and Gorazde, where he once headed an art association.
Since his childhood, Jakub Hubjer has been involved in art, even though he is a locksmith by profession. Due to family circumstances, he did not fulfill his desire to study art, but he never gave up on his dreams, and his sculptures can be found all over the world.
He was lucky to learn from good masters and people, so he soon taught others and started earning money by working privately. He had a job, but he managed to find time for his sculptures.
“I created reliefs, I made the tools for it mostly by myself, as it suits me. Once my friend the painter Lalo Srkalovic stopped by and when he saw what I was doing he was delighted. He motivated me to make a solo exhibition. And since that exhibition, I moved from my studio in Hubjer’s house by the Drina to the newly opened Art Club, where I had a roombecause working with stone and wood meant a lot of dust. Also, I worked near the Drina where I had ‘my spot’, I could relax, think, work. Later I ran the Art Club, and I also became the president since everyone supported it, even though all my colleagues graduated from academies and were highly educated,” pointed out Jakub.
It was a time of great exhibitions, a time when culture flourished, and Gorazde was one of the few cities in the former Yugoslavia that gathered some of the greatest artistic names from that time in an art colony.
“We did a lot of things out of enthusiasm. When you gather Zuko Dzumhur or Djokic, the then president of Art Critics based in New York, in one place, that’s huge,” Jakub recalled.
The first exhibition at the refugee center
He turned his work into art, he made sculptures in all materials – wood, stone, metal, clay, plaster… He made a gallery from the wire factory where he worked as an artisan. He even painted its walls.
Jakub started exhibiting his works abroad even before the war, so his masterpiece weighing more than two tons is still in front of the Volkswagen building in Kassel, Germany.
This helped the artist to be recognized by his value in Denmark, where he was evacuated after being wounded several times during the war in BiH, and the last time he even woke up in a morgue. He doesn’t like to talk about that period of his life, as he said, it is good enough for him that he survived.
He and his wife Dada officially returned to Gorazde, and he travels to Denmark often, but only to visit the children.
E.Dz.
Source: Klix.ba
