Bio

Radovan Nastić (1975), also known as Bensedin, is an American multimedia artist of a Serbian origin living in Los Angeles. Nastić’s career as an active performance artist, author, photojournalist and radio host has made him world renowned.

Nastić, started his career in 1995 as a radio host on B92 radio, in the cult radio show Rhythm of the Heart All Star. During this time he became a regular host on several radio shows including “Morning Program” “Rhythm of the Sports Heart” and “Loudspeaker – Urban Legends and Myths.”

The valuable work experience he gained with B92 Radio allowed him to establish himself as a renowned city journalist in Belgrade and across Serbia, providing him with the expertise to conceive and release his own radio show “Miniatures from Culture.”

After writing for Beorama, The Cultural Guide of Belgrade, Nastić published his first book titled Bensedin, composed of previously published short stories. To date, Nastić has published several books of the urban, avant-garde genre and is the author of numerous essays and articles which have been published in online sites such as trablmejker.com, maniac.blog.hr and the Zrenjanin punk team, in addition to having a regular blog in the cultural section of the daily newspaper Glas javnosti.

Through his book …i napravim se da je sve u redu [and I pretend everything is fine] Nastić became the first author to publish a story about Merlinka, a famous tranvestite whose murder in 2003 caught national news headlines across Serbia and Montenegro.

In 2007, at the group exhibition 30 X 30 in the Cultural Center of Zrenjanin Nastić, presented the Serbian National Flag, an artwork composed of golden painkillers with the frame and background filled with used sedative boxes. The three flag colors were represented by one blue, one red, one white syringe defined as a dystopian concept of our present times.

At an exhibition entitled Less Than Human in 2008, Nastić’s text were covered by Croatian artist Tajana Sizdrak.

In 2021, Nastić provided Zrenjanin’s Cultural Center an exhibition titled Hollywood through the haze[1][2][3] – a presentation of photographs taken in Hollywood during 2012 depicting “his own experience of Hollywood reality where many individuals dream of becoming stars.” The strongest survive. ”

In 2022, Nastić’s 2007 book Rejčel – ljubavna priča was published in English as Rachel – a love story by Portalibris. It is updated edition and with an English translation,[4] which brings, as the title suggests, a Belgrade love story that follows the whirlwind of emotions, memories and doubts of the main character. He was looking for the meaning of life and finding out answers in classic films, musical hits, with pills and passionate encounters with his beloved Rachel. In addition to the epilogue that already existed in the previous version, this one also contains a new one – Epilogue 2022, in which the author looks back on his work from a different perspective, while living in Los Angeles with a different life and makes some observations about contrasts of life between Serbia and the USA, about the past, the present and maturing… … Instead of an afterword, the work also contains an emotional text about the artist Sasa Markovic – Mikrob (1959 – 2010), with whom the author was friends and who wrote a review for the first edition.[5]

Today he lives and works in Los Angeles, USA.