eius oci

Od avangarde dO estetike — Od revOlucije dO pOetikefrOm the avant-garde tO the aesthetics — frOm the revOlutiOn tO the pOetics

U rimskoj mitologiji genius loci bio je zaštitnički duh mjesta, često s likom zmije.— Wikipedia

Genius loci (lat. duh, ili bolje identitet mjesta; načelo oblikovanja s obzirom na kontekst u baroknoj pejzažnoj arhitekturi i vernakularnoj gradnji moderne; danas se u govoru o arhitekturi izbjegava koristiti) sam zamislila kao nastup kustosa koji izlažu “svoga” umjetnika: dakle pozivam, ili izabirem (I want you… gestom) nekoliko kustosa da naprave izložbu odgovarajući na temu koja je zajednički nazivnik radova, na način svojevrsnog blind datea ili tehnikom montaže (atrakcija, preuzetom iz filma a rado su se njome služili dadaisti) i “radikalnog” supostavljanja. Slična strategija je pozvati umjetnike u koje “vjeruješ” da odgovore na temu: takvo iskustvo, jer čin “pozvanja” je trenutak transfera “moći” s kustosa na umjetnika, imala sam na izložbi Sigmundove priče1 (Galerija SC, 2006.). Alternativno, nanovo sam promijenila strategiju i postala autorom rada koji izlaže, kao moja kustosica, Ivana Meštrov. Često su kustosi izložbi, naime, umjetnici – ne postoji stroga podjela uloga na/u izložbi (izlaganje kao predstavljanje, izložba kao predstava), niti je za bivanje kustosom potrebna diploma povjesničara umjetnosti (tko je licenciran da izabire?), što smo Ivana i ja; dok je Tomislav Pavelić (na izložbi predstavljen video radom u kojemu je autor ujedno akter radnje, repetitivnog činjenja istog: skočiti u more sa stijene, isplivati, skočiti u more sa stijene, isplivati… ljepotnost prizora zalaska sunca na Jadranu, uobičajena na turističkim razglednicama, je napadna) arhitekt.

Izložbom Genius loci slavimo: 50 godina Studentskog centra. Izložbom se smjera – a riječ je o prostoru i procesu (prije nego umjetničkim “produktima”) – pokazati kapacitet Galerije za umjetničke transformacije (koje su potrebne da ostane ista), uz novu vrst kritičkog pristupa2. Riječ je o perfomativnosti ponajprije prostora (prostor koji od činjenice zbilje postaje znak), tijekom čijeg bivanja (tj. nakon 1960-tih) umjetničko djelo kao takvo je, prema W. Benjaminu, izgubilo svoju, tzv., auru3. Na fotografiji Za Rexa (1983.) Mije Vesovića prijateljev je sin u prijateljevom stanu u davnoj neformalnoj situaciji, druženja. Iako u fundusu Muzeja suvremene umjetnost Zagreb, snimka je njezina autora (2007., ili dvadeset godina kasnije) zamalo koštala zatvora budući da su u njoj “prepoznate” pedofilske autorove sklonosti – dječak koji sakriva svoju nagost kitom cvijeća s promjenom duha vremena i društvenog konteksta (mjesta) biva iščitana

1 izložbi povodom obljetnice čovjeka koji nas je, do njega monolitne, podijelio na Id, Ego i Superego, a naziv je parafraza opere Jacquesa Offenbacha2 post-vangarda namjesto avant-garde?3 (s novim “sinestezijskim”, uključivo fizičkim svojstvima izložbenog prostora, medijima i novim načinima percepcije: koja je kolektivna i javna a ne više privatna i intimna, a može biti kontemplativna ili tzv. “rastresena” radi intenzifikacije stimulacija publike u svakodnevnom okolišu)

na posve novi način4. Svako umjetničko stvaranje je iz pozicije egzistencije; svaka umjetnost je društvena praksa koja nikada nije posve bez posljedica, svaki umjetnik je “kolektivni umjetnik” nebitno pripada li formalno(j) grupi ili pravcu.

Kao što je Manfredo Tafuri rekao da nema avangardne arhitekture (nazivajući takve pokušaje, u SAD-u, arhitekturom u budoaru, l’architecture dans le boudoir), jer se arhitektura nužno mora baviti stvarnošću, makar kroz “otpor” spram, i “negaciju” stvarnosti, možemo li govoriti o umjetnosti u budoaru? Neki će se radovi na izložbi pozabaviti upravo tom temom, provizornog i efemernog (ljepota, spektakl, leisure time) naspram nečega fiksiranog (No more dreams?) i trajnog (u osnovi definicije stila; ili naprosto: umjetnost nas uči da stvari vidimo na novi način; ima snagu – moć? – promijeniti čovjeka i njegov svijet). Kao što je galerija javni prostor, izložbom prezentiramo (i dozvoljavamo interpretaciju javnosti) sekundarna, formalna svojstva umjetničkih djela odnosno njihove manifestacije ili medijatore – artefakte (deskripcija, verbalizacija djela je također zasnovana na simbolizaciji; uostalom i ”ništa”5 označava svojevrsno postojanje), iz kojih će pozoran promatrač iščitati autorovu intenciju. Prosudba je jednako važna kada vozimo automobil i kad biramo životnog partnera6: kao što imamo vlastite svjetove, s obzirom na način na koji doživljavamo stvarnost svijeta i naša očekivanja, tako će svaki posjetitelj izložbe kreirati svoju izložbu zahvaljujući različitim mehanizmima percepcije, koji često uključuju mehanizme iluzije. Izložba, jer govori jezikom simbola, akcija (radnji i događaja) i objekata (artefakata), koji opisuju i/ili izražavaju sadržaj izložbe, jest proces socijalizacije. Svaka izložba je uspostavljanje novog milieu-a, mijenjajući karakter (kvalitetu) izložbenog prostora. Tako Benjamin govori o “exhibition value” umjetnosti koja, u trenutku kada biva potvrđena u umjetničkoj instituciji generira novu, “exchange value”: upravo ta, “dodana” vrijednost potvrđuje izložbu kao medij ili mjesto razmjene, komunikacije publike i umjetničkog djela. Stoga se jedna “grupa” umjetnika na izložbi bavi upravo temom promjene identiteta (shifting identities), odnosom tijela i okoliša i njegova (tijela) kostimiranja kojim preuzima nove simboličke uloge a koje smo kadri dekodirati poznavajući kulturnu i društvenu tradiciju na koje se referiraju. Ili tim činom (kostimiranja) svoj vlastiti prostor (tijelo) omeđuje i odvaja od drugih. Fotografije Igora Kuduza ”nisam radio kao isključivo umjetničke radove. Jer, ruku na srce, da smo negdje gdje postoji razvijena fetiš-scena sa svojom infrastrukturom, galerijama i slično teško da bih ikada te fotografije izložio u nekoj umjetničkoj galeriji. Formalno, ja sam umjetnik i sa zadovoljstvom (zlo)upotrebljavam svoju poziciju miješajući kontekste. Reklo bi se, upućujem na neodrživost istih” (I.K.). Nicole Hewitt je s drugim sudionicima svoga rada-u-nastajanju, poglavito umjetnicima, upisala plesni tečaj radi snimanja serije video “priča” s obzirom na genius loci, škole plesa (uskoro će biti objedinjeni u svojevrstan video-omnibus). Surađuje s polaznicima tečaja polazeći od njih samih: tako su Anja i Omar tinejdžeri koji ne mogu izgovoriti tekst pred kamerama jer su se zaljubili. Smiju se, zastajkuju, crvene i pokušavaju iznova,

4 Genius loci je dijelom temeljen na mojoj selekciji radova na izložbi Priroda I društvo, Dubrovnik, 2007.5 prema Heideggeru6 prema C. Norberg-Schulzu

isto. Igrom slučaja, u kategoriji starijih od 35 godina Nickie je sa suprugom glazbenikom počela pobjeđivati na lokalnim i regionalnim plesnim natjecanjima održavanim u sportskim dvoranama, na trenutak umivenim čarolijom, svjetlima estrade, o čemu svjedoče diplome i medalje na izložbi. Plesna oprava utjelovljuje mogućnost preobrazbe efemernog u spektakl. Umjetničke prakse imaju učinak u stvarnosti, no vrijedi i obratno (i obrat obrata: umjetnost može biti njezin odraz, ali i odupirati se društvenoj stvarnosti, pritom neizostavno bivajući njezinim dijelom): vrijeme “sada” je ono atomizacije, u kojemu “ljepota caruje. Ona je postala imperativ: budi lijep ili nas barem poštedi svoje ružnoće” (uz rad D. Phillipp). Za razliku od performativne vjenčanice Marie-Ange Guilleminot, haljina koju odijeva Dan Phillipp načinjena je od drapirane tkanine i bogato dekorirana, ona je utjelovljeno značenje7, no dok je nošenje vjenčanice simboličan čin, svezan s ritualom u čijem je središtu mladenka “lijepa kao slika”, za Kanta je prava ljepota “slobodna”, nema pretpostavljeni koncept. Video rad Dalibora Martinisa govori o vječnom plamenu simboliziranom paljenjem automobila, pravljenja privremene javne skulpture u predgrađu Ljubljane; akcija će biti ponovljena tijekom trajanja ove izložbe negdje u Zagrebu, povodom (još jedne) obljetnice, revolucije ‘68. započete parolom “budimo realni, tražimo nemoguće”: ”Javna skulptura Vječna vatra gnjeva ne komemorira nepoznatim protagonistima suvremenih ratova, nego borbama vođenima u ime nepoznata bijesa. On će se pojaviti bilo gdje, bilo kada”. Limuzina marke Lancia je na postamentu, “pripremljena od strane pirotehničara, spremna čeka početak. Pomalo zlokoban prizor, auto podsjeća na žrtvu koja, već pomirena sa sudbinom, čeka da započne ritual. Svjesni smo, međutim, da su kola dopremljena trenutak prije nego li će ih rastaviti i reciklirati te da, objektivno, nikakve nove štete ne može biti. Ipak, na sjedalu je jastučić, u pretincu od vratiju zaboravljeni mirisni osvježivači zraka u kabini. Lancia je zacijelo bila nečija. Prije početka autor prisutnima dijeli suvenir/multipl – kutiju šibica za ovu priliku posebno dizajniranu grafičkim znakom projekta i navedenim proglasom, a pokraj postamenta vješa zastavu s identičnim obilježjem. Akcija započinje Martinisovim bacanjem Molotovljeva koktela na automobil” (iz teksta Borisa Greinera). Cikličnu i univerzalnu narav takvih rituala Martinis potvrđuje ispisivanjem datuma i lokacija buktinja u nedavnoj političkoj povijesti svijeta.

Činjenica jest da je većina domaćih stvaralaca u suvremenoj umjetnosti svoju afirmaciju doživjela upravo izlažući, često prvi puta, na skupnoj ili samostalnoj izložbi u Galeriji SC. Činom stvaranja umjetničko djelo biva bačeno u svijet, izlaganjem, pak, ono dobiva priliku da svoj kreativni potencijal, poruku – koja može biti i antiporuka – komunicira, postajući istodobno predmetom interpretacije. Umjetnikov opus je aditivan i kumulativan, rijetko nadomješćujući ili potirući ranije radove novima, dakle već prvom izložbom on začinje svoj prepoznatljiv opus. Izložba je revijalno-istraživačkog karaktera, no primarno cilja na kritičko vrednovanje i sistematiziranje povijesti mjesta, anticipira program galerije u budućnosti istodobno rezimirajući njezin doprinos povijesti moderne

7 Arthur C. Danto, Nasilje nad ljepotom, 2003.

i suvremene umjetnosti u domaćem kontekstu. Radovi prate format “bijele kocke” izložbenog prostora, uključujući i njezine stranice gore (rad Silvija Vujičića tematizira “vješanje” radova na izložbi, instalacijom u otvorenom krovištu galerije, potencijalnog mobila i naizgled ovješenog tunela načinjenog od tankih metalnih vješalica, readymade koji Vujičić koristi “recipročnom strategijom”: već je koristio u svojim radovima istu jeftinu, industrijski i serijski proizvedenu vješalicu) i dolje (rad koji računa na iščašujuće efekte loma svjetlosti Ivane Franke). Namjera mi je bila izaći iz prostora galerije izložbom, tematizirati plazu u tijelu zgrade ITD-a s okruglom fontanom8 koja je nažalost, nedugo prije ove izložbe, sravnjena sa zemljom. Budimo nerealni, tražimo moguće:-)

Silva Kalčić

8 Fontana kružnog tlocrta je protežni motiv Zagreba, prema R. Ivančeviću.

Silva Kalčić, Versailles, 19992 ink-jet otiska, prema analognoj fotografiji / 2 prints after analog photo70 x 100 cm

In Roman mythology the genius loci was the protective spirit of a place. It was often depicted as a snake.— Wikipedia

I imagined Genius loci (Lat. spirit, or better, the identity of a place; a formal principle with respect to the context in the landscape architecture of Baroque and Modernist vernacular construction; today it is avoided in talk of architecture) as how curators might appear showing “their” artist; hence I invite or I select (I want you - with gesture) several curators to produce an exhibition corresponding to the theme that is the common denominator of the pieces, in the manner of a kind of blind date, or with the technique of montage (attraction, taken over from the film, and happily used by the Dadaists) or of radical opposition. It is a similar strategy to invite artists you believe in to respond to a topic: this is the experience, for the act of invitation is a moment of transfer of power from curator to artist, that I experienced at the exhibition Sigmund’s Stories1 (SC Gallery, 2006). Alternatively, once again I changed my strategy, and became myself author of work that was exhibited – as my curator – by Ivana Meštrov. For curators of exhibitions are frequently artists – there is no strict division of roles at or in an exhibition (exhibition as presentation, exhibition as performance or show), nor do you need a degree in art history to be a curator (who has the license to choose?), like Ivana and I; while Tomislav Pavelić (shown at an exhibition with a video work in which the author is at once actor of the action, repetitively doing the same thing: jumping into the sea from the rock, swimming out, jumping into the sea from a rock, swimming out… the beautifulness of the setting-sun-over-the-Adriatic scene featured so often on postcards is conspicuous) is an architect.

In the exhibition Genius loci we are celebrating 50 years of the Student Centre. The intention behind the exhibition – and it is about a space and a process rather than about art productions – is to show the Gallery’s capacity for artistic transformations (which are needed for it to stay the same), along with a new kind of critical approach2. This is about the performativeness of, above all, the space (a space that from a fact of reality has become a sign) during the being of which (i.e., after the 1960s) the work of art, according to Benjamin, lost its so-called aura3. In the photograph For Rex (1983) of Mijo Vesović, a friend’s son is in the friend’s flat in a long-ago informal situation, of socialising. Although in the holdings of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, the

1 Exhibition marking the anniversary of a man who divided us, monolithic until him, into Id , Ego and Superego, and the title is a reworking of the opera of Offenbach.2 Post-vanguard instead of avant-garde?3 With new synaesthetic media, including the physical characteristics of the venue, and ways of perceiving; which is collective and public, no longer private and intimate, and can be contemplative or distracted, for the sake of identification of stimulations of the public in the everyday environment.

photograph almost cost its author (in 2007, or some twenty years later) a prison term since the author’s paedophile propensities were “perceived” in it – the boy who is hiding his nudity with a bouquet of flowers, with a change in the spirit of the time and the social context (the place), was read in a completely new manner4. Every artistic creation is from an existential position; every art is also social praxis that is never completely devoid of consequences, every artist being a collective artist that without a doubt belongs to some formal, or formally belongs to, a group or impulse.

If, as Manfredo Tafuri said that there is no avant-garde architecture (calling such attempts in the USA “architecture in the boudoir”, l’architecture dans le boudoir), for architecture necessarily has to deal with reality, even if only through a resistance to or negation of reality, can we speak about boudoir art? Some of the pieces at this exhibition will be engaged precisely with this theme, of the provisional and the ephemeral (beauty, spectacle, leisure time) as against the fixed (No more dreams?) and the lasting (in the basis of the definition of style; or simply: art teaches us to see things in a new way; it has the strength – the power? – to change people and their world). Just as the gallery is a public space, in the exhibition we are presenting (and permitting the interpretation of the public) the secondary and formal properties of works of art, that is, their manifestations or mediators – artefacts (description, or verbalisation of a work is also based on symbolisation; after all, even “nothing”5 refers to a kind of existing), from which the attentive observer will be able to read off the author’s intention. Judgement is just as important when we drive a car and when we are choosing a life partner6: we have our own worlds, with respect to the way in which we perceive the reality of the world and our expectations, so every visitor to the exhibition will create their own exhibition, thanks to the diverse mechanisms of perception, which often involve mechanisms of illusion. The exhibition, for it talks with the language of symbols, actions (acts and events) and objects (artefacts), which describe and/or express the content of the exhibition is a process of socialisation. Every exhibition means the setting up of a new milieu, changing the character or quality of the venue. Thus Benjamin talks of “the exhibition value” of art that at the moment it is endorsed in an art institution generates a new exchange value, and it is this added value that confirms the exhibition as medium or site of exchange, of communication between public and artwork. Hence a group of artists at the exhibition deals precisely with the topic of shifting identities, that is of the body and environment and the body’s costuming, with which it takes on new symbolic roles and which we are capable of decoding, knowing the cultural and social tradition to which they refer. Or through this act of costuming, the own space of the body is bounded and distinguished from that of others. The photographs of Igor Kuduz “[were not done] exclusively as artworks. Because to be frank if we were somewhere there is a developed fetish scene with its own infrastructure, galleries and so on I would hardly have been able to show these photos in some art gallery. Formally speaking, I am an

4 Genius loci is partially based on my selection of works at the exhibition Nature and society, Dubrovnik, 2007.5 After Heidegger.6 After C. Norberg-Schulz.

artist and with pleasure I (mis)use my position by confusing the contexts. One might say, I refer to the unsustainability of them” (I.K.). Nicole Hewitt with the other participants of her work in progress, particularly women artists, enrolled into a dance course for the sake of recording a series of video stories concerned with the genius loci, the dance school (soon to be combined into a video-omnibus of sorts). She works with the course members, starting off from them: thus Anja and Omar are teenagers who cannot speak their lines in front of the cameras because they have fallen in love. They giggle, dry up, go red and try again, the same. By chance, in the category of over-35s Nickie with her musician husband started winning at local and regional dance contests held in sports halls, for a moment brightened with the magic and lights of show business, as shown by the certificates and medals at the show. The dance costumes embody the possibility of the transformation of the ephemeral into spectacle. Art practices have an effect in reality, but the reverse is also true (and a reversal of a reversal; art can be its reflection, but it can also hold out against social reality, while inevitably remaining a part of it): time “now” is that of atomisation, in which “beauty rules. It has become the imperative: be lovely or at least spare us all ugly” (along with the work of D. Phillipp). Unlike the performative wedding dress of Marie-Ange Guilleminot, the dress put on by Dan Phillipp is made of draped fabric and is richly decorated; it is the embodiment of significance7, but while wearing a wedding dress is a symbolic act, bound up with the ritual at the centre of which is a bride “as pretty as a picture”, for Kant a true beauty is “free”, it has no superior concept. The video piece of Dalibor Martinis tells of the eternal flame symbolised by burning a car, making a temporary public sculpture in a Ljubljana suburb. This action will be repeated while the exhibition is on somewhere in Zagreb, marking another anniversary, that of the revolution of 1968, which starts with the slogan “let’s be real, let’s ask for the impossible”. “The public sculpture The Eternal fire of Anger does not commemorate unknown protagonists of contemporary wars, but struggles waged on behalf of an unknown rage. It will appear anywhere, anywhen.” The Lancia limousine on the pedestal “has been prepared by demolition experts and waits its moment. A somewhat ominous scene, the car recalls the victim that, resigned to its fate, awaits the beginning of the ritual. We are aware however that the car has been supplied just a moment before it would have been anyway stripped and recycled and that objectively speaking there is no damage at all. Yet, there is a cushion on the seat, in the door compartment there are forgotten air fresheners. The Lancia was someone’s. Before the beginning the author hands out a multiple of a souvenir to those who are present – a matchbox for the occasion, specially designed with the graphic sign of the project and with the proclamation stated, and by the pedestal hangs a flag with the same emblem. The action starts with Martinis throwing a Molotov cocktail at the car” (from the text of Boris Greiner). Martinis confirms the cyclical and universal nature of such rituals by writing out the dates and locations of conflagrations in the recent political history of the world.

7 Arthur C. Danto, The Abuse of Beauty, 2003

It is a fact that most of the contemporary creative minds in contemporary art have made their names exhibiting, often for the first time, at a collective or solo show in the SC Gallery. With the act of creation, the artwork is cast upon the world, but by exhibition it obtains an opportunity to communicate its creative potential, its message or anti-message, and becoming at the same time an object of interpretation. The artist’s oeuvre is additive and cumulative, seldom supplanting or eliminating earlier works with new, and thus with the first exhibition the artist is creating a recognisable oeuvre. An exhibition has a review and investigative nature, but primarily aims at a critical evaluation and systematisation of the history of the places; it looks forward to gallery programmes of the future, at the same time summing up its contribution to the history of modern and contemporary art in the domestic context. Works follow the white cube format of the exhibition space, including its sides on the top (the Silvio Vujičić work makes a subject of the idea of hanging works, with an installation in the open roof of the gallery, a potential mobile and apparently suspended tunnel made of slender metal coat-hangers, a ready-made that Vujičić uses with the reciprocal strategy – he has already used in his works the same cheap, industrially, mass-produced coat-hanger) and down (a work that calculates on the disjointing effects of refraction of light by Ivana Franke). It was my intention to go out from the space of the gallery with an exhibition, to make a topic of the plaza in the body of the building of the ITD Theatre with its round fountain8, which, alas, a short time before the exhibition, was flattened. Let’s be unreal, let’s demand the possible:-)

Silva Kalčić

8 According to Radovan Ivančević, the circular fountain is the extensional motif of Zagreb.

Odraz / The Reflection, 2003samoljepiva prozirna folija / self-adhesive transparent foil

100 x 100 cm

iaa frane

In Time (Anja, Omar), 2007mdv/dvd (video) instalacija / video installation

nicoe heitt

Bound to please, 2005 –2008kolor fotografija / colour photography

digitalni isprint / digital print90 x 120 cm

io kudu

Vječna vatra / The Eternal Flame, 2008dvd (video), 360"

daibor matinis

100 pokušaja (da se promijeni sve): Skokovi / 100 Attempts (to change everything): Jumps, 2008

dvd (video), 36'07"

toisav pavelic

Trijumf estetike / Triumph of the Aestetic, 200610 ink-jet otisaka / 10 prints

50 x 70 cm

Got

ika

/ Got

hic

Avan

t-gar

de /

Avan

gard

da phillipp

Avan

t-gar

de /

Avan

gard

mio vesoic

Aljoša Roksandić, Paris, 1983analogna fotografija / analog photography

Bez naziva / Untitled, 2007video, 9'40"

iona vasic

Metalne vješalice / Wire hangers, 2008v: 0.22 m, š: 0.42 m, d: 16 m

3200 metalnih vješalica, metalni nosač

sivio ujicic

izlažu / artistsIvana Franke / Nicole Hewitt / Igor Kuduz / Dalibor Martinis / Tomislav Pavelić / Dan Phillipp / Mio Vesović / Silvio Vujičić // Ivana Meštrov

autOrica izlOžbe / authOr Of the exhibitiOnSilva Kalčić

Organizacija / OrganisatiOnGalerija sc, Zagreb / sc Gallery, Zagreb

vOditeljica galerije sc / sc gallery curatOrKsenija Baronica izdavač / publisherStudentski centar u Zagrebu / the Student Center in Zagreb za izdavača / fOr the publisherNiko Vidović urednica / editOrKsenija Baronica grafičkO OblikOvanje i prijelOm / design and layOut*pinhead: Igor Kuduz

prijevOd na engleski / translatiOn tO englishGraham McMaster

tisak / printingGipa naklada / number Of cOpies printed300

Izdan u Zagrebu, svibanj 2008. / Published in Zagreb, May 2008

Izložba je realizirana uz novčanu potporu Gradskog ureda za kulturu grada Zagreba i Ministarstva kulture RH / The Exhibition was realized from the means of City of Zagreb Culture Office and the Ministry of Culture of the Rep. of Croatia

eius oci