Hideout is reminiscent of a small house. It is a house of memory—from when Ivo Nikić grew up in Obiliq, a town just outside of Prishtina. Nikić moved to Poland in 1985, and hasn’t returned since. Yet he still recalls when, together with his friends, he used to build hideouts from bottle crates he took from a warehouse next to his house. The play fortresses became their own safe havens, and they were accepted by the factory owners as guardians of the stock. For Nikić, they were also extensions of the small home he and his parents inhabited. Their apartment was intended for single workers and therefore small—and illegally hosting the family of three. With Coca- Cola crates pointing to an image of global capitalism, the artist reframes dreams from the days of his early youth. Nikić revives an idea of a home outside a house, or a static notion of origin, like that of his hideouts. Enlarging the scale, he lets adults enter the provisional structure and allows them to play games that turn discarded objects into useful toys. An invitation to reflect on the notion of home, the installation departs from rigid concepts of origin and opens a horizon toward the makeshift or the temporary, something self-constructed that, nevertheless, is a comfort.

Ivo Nikić (1974) was born in Prishtina and lives and works in Warsaw.

Text by Maximilian Lehner

Photo credits Tuğhan Anıt