Croatian Pavilion at the Eastern Neighbours exhibition

Variable Amnesia . Contemporary art from Croatia

Croatian Pavilion at the Eastern Neighbours exhibition
Cultural center Babel, Utrecht, Netherlands, 8th September - 29th
October 2006

opening Thursday 7th September 20 h
[it is 'invitations only', please feel free to contact Darko Fritz to
list you at the guest list]

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Variable Amnesia . Contemporary art from Croatia

Artists: Darko Fritz, Andreja Kuluncic, Dalibor Martinis, Ivan Marusic
Klif, Magdalena Pederin, Slaven Tolj, Goran Trbuljak

Curator: Darko Fritz


In 'Western civilisation' (North America and Europe) there is a
tendency of rapidly forgetting both social and cultural values. Such a
process is omnipresent in so-called East / Central Europe probably
because of often changes of political systems and power-construct that
are constantly re-writing the history / histories. That phenomena
extends to field of contemporary art as well. Around the world as well
as in Croatia the art education system has just started to shape in
contemporary way over last decade or so. It is little written and
published on truly international histories of contemporary art as for
example histories of both conceptual and media art. The academic
establishment seems to ignore unstable media of an oral tradition that
is dominant in many places where some forms of contemporary art were
not institutionaly recognized or there were just other reasons not to
publish. The new generations of artists both consciously and
unconsciously tend to repeat over and over same or very similar works
and processes and as well mistakes that are done by other artists long
ago. In the same way it seems that respective institutions do not
recognize achievements from the past what makes any new initiative to
start form the scretch. In other hand, 'western' art history seems to
refuse taking into account any histories and canons except the
'western' ones, and are ignoring with consistency achievements made in
Other places. Usually a well intendend presenting of the art of the
Other ends, in repeating the process of 'discovery', clearly states the
power-position who 'discovers' whom. For example, over the last six
years there were three big / high-budget exhibitions organized and
exhibited in 'Western Europe' that 'discovered' the art of the Balkans
to their next-doors neighbour. Worldwide, there is a same phenomena of
forgetting histories of digital media art which is often percieved it
began in late1980's in the 'west', but not early 1960's
internationally. I dare to call all those processes Amnesia
International.

In the term of institutional critique the artworks of Goran Trbuljak
(1948) are done in continuum of four decades expressing both the
geo-political and individual stages of the artist’s position in society
and cultural industry. He made series of exhibitions with posters and
text only as sole exhibits. In 1971 the exhibition consisted of the
poster that read:'I don't want to show anything new or original’and in
1973: ‘The fact that somebody is given the opportunity to stage an
exhibition is more important than what is shown at that exhibition’. In
‘transition times’ in Croatia of the 1990’s, he made another one: ‘Old
and bald I search for the gallery’. For this exhibition a new poster
was produced that reads: ‘Old & depressive anonymous is looking for a
permanent display place in some nice new art museum space’.

Dalibor Martinis (1947) was developing a project 'Variable Risk
Landscape'during a whole year of 2004. Heput 37. 310 euros into the ZB
Trend Investment Fund with an investment term of one year. While the
project was in progress, the artist / climber / investor went once a
month up into the hills to hike the amplitudes that were shown by the
value of the ZB Trend share for the current month. The appropriate
altitudes were measured with an altimeter. A Web site at
www.variablerisklandscape.com has been opened up to follow the course
of the project in the hybrid landscape with constantly updated
information about the current value of the investment and other
financial indicators, exchange rates etc. In Dec. 31, 2004 the
difference in the value of the investment after 365 days was determined
and the whole annual dividend of the project was paid to all the
spectators present at the closing event. VRL 2004 Annual Report was
published in 2005.The selling price of the work ‘Variable Risk
Landscape’corresponds to the value in euros of 365 shares in the ZB
Trend investment fund on the day of the sale.

Project ‘Austrians Only’by Andreja Kuluncic (1968) consists of
advertisements, posters and direct-mail items. In the focus of the
project there are latent prejudices and the creeping discrimination
against foreign workers in Austria. With top-quality, well-designed job
advertisements, the 'inferior' jobs for Austrians are extolled,
including all the restrictions and disadvantages with which otherwise
mostly migrants see themselves confronted. In the words by artist: ‘The
idea of the project is to make job advertisement for only Austrian
citizens, with jobs and labour conditions they would never accept for
themselves but see as perfect for the “others” (non Austrian).’In the
work ‘SIGHT.SEEING’shedelegates the photo recordings of city sights to
asylum-seekers in Graz, Austria. At the chosen sights they wish to do
something, but the social situation doesn’t allow them, for instance
the sight of the University that one could not apply for.

Project ‘Migrant Navigator’by Darko Fritz (1966) develops to question
notions of home and displacement as well as issues of migration,
identity and nostalgia. The ‘Home’ button of the Internet browser is
re-designed as 9 x 9 meters flower bad in the city park in the work
‘The Future of Nostalgia’. In the work ‘Home’redesigned silver-black
Home icon is displayed at the commercial billboards placed close to the
national borders. The poster does not contain any further information
except the pictorial one, inducing the series of associations in those
ones crossing the border and at very best it could inspire them on
rethinking the identity -a national one (as a socio-cultural construct)
and a personal one.

In artworks by Magdalena Pederin (1968) 16 characters from author’s
name are displayed in thousands of anagrams making the new (often
absurd) meanings. Those words are shown in video medium as animated
written ASCII texts in the work ‘Name is an anagram’and presented as
machine-spoken text from multiplied robotic-alike video self-portraits
in work ‘Logorea’.

Another artist who uses the (new) media and expressespersonal matters
is Ivan Marusic Klif(1969). Interactive DVD ‘Synchronicity’shows a
registration of the sound performance performed by author in form of
several simultaneous video screens which user can manipulate alongside
several layers of subtitles. In performance he uses low-tech sound
equipment producing semi-improvised flux of noise, feedback and various
sound sensations.

Slaven Tolj (1964) explores an extreme of juxtaposition of private and
social issues. The performance ‘Food for survival’that he performed
with his (of that time) wife Marija took place in war time of 1993.
From each others naked bodies they were eating a food supplied to war
zones by the international humanitarian aid. The original food-can
(‘ready-made’),as the ‘logo’reads in three languages ‘Food for
survival’, consists of a shapeless and colourless protein-rich gel. In
‘Nature and Society’performance from 2002 Slaven crashes the horns
against the wall which he holds on his head. In the words by artist:
‘These horns are the only thing that I have inherited from my
grandfather - The horns are 58 years old and were intended to be a
present from the Italian governor of Dalmatia to the Fascist Italian
leader Benito Mussolini. My grandfather, who was working in 1944 at the
railway post office decided to exchange the gift; he sent a smaller
pair of horns to Mussolini and kept these to himself. By crashing the
horns I deliberate myself from all these connotations - to crash them,
to destroy them is an attempt to fight or to come up against all the
correlations of nature and society, desire and rules, implicit in the
symbolism of the horns within society, within family, within
expectations of one’s own, within projections of one’s own. To crash
them against the wall is an attempt, a need, a wish, a plea to leave
behind male ideology of the society and family - to leave behind, to
stop, to finish, defining one male history (misfortune) that transfers
from one generation to another.’

Darko Fritz

Exhibition is supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of
Croatia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of
Croatia, Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in the Netherlands

http://www.culturalaid.com/croatia.htm

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Darko Fritz . http://darkofritz.net . [email protected]

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