BLEAK POSTCARDS FROM THE FUTURE

Željko Kipke: Third retrofuturist exhibition: Hello from Zagreb, Ulrich Gallery, December 12 – December 31, 2011

By: Tihana Bertek

The term “retrofuturism” was first used by the editor of the eponymous magazine and multimedia artist Lloyd Dunn in 1983, referring to a direction in art that presents the future from the perspective of the past. It spread through different fan cycles, especially SF, exploring the tension between the future and the past, based on imaginary technologies and parallel realities, shrouded with a feeling of nostalgia and dys/(u)topia. Well known painter and writer Željko Kipke shows six large oils on canvas in the Ulrich Gallery, entitled Hello from Zagreb, (December 12-31, 2011). The first retrofuturist show was dedicated to Stanley Kubrick and his Odyssey (Rijeka, 2001), and the second one dealt with space explorers and unknown crafts that appeared on different locations around the planet in the 60’s (Ljubljana, 2005). While the subject of the first two exhibitions was the universe, the third one is slightly different – it is more local, situated in the domain of earthly relations, as a continuation of artist’s many years of social criticism and investigation of social issues through art. As he points out in one of his interviews, Kipke is no longer interested in the formal issues of painting, but in a socially engaged painting. Ironic stance towards certain social, and for our considerations specific, phenomena which relate to current political events are some of the main features of Kipke’s work during the past decade.

These are retro-style panoramic views of Zagreb in blue with yellow details – freemason’s colours, but also colours of the EU, Kipke states. The year is 2240, evoking the prediction of a Hungarian artist Tamás Szentjóby that by that time, everyone will have become an artist, including the employees of repressive institutions. With Hello from Zagreb, Kipke brings a dismal vision of six recognizable Zagreb locations – the Makisimir Park, Jelačić Square, Tomislav Square, Sava Waterfront, Vjesnik Tower, St. Mark’s Square – with symbols of the European Union discreetly merged, yellows pointed out on the blue-grey panorama. For example, there is a CEFIC sign on the king Tomislav monument (European Chemical Industry Council); the Ban Jelačić Square has Belgian banks Fortis and Citibank; on top of Vjesnik Tower there is De Standaard sign, the Flemish newspaper, ; in Makismir Park, Atomium lurks behind the trees, while everything is covered with dots of yellow street lights. Kipke explains how it is about “reshaping the Croatian capital according to the Belgian model”, but this more of a colonisation, in this case, Croatian urban space is being colonised by Belgium as the synecdoche of the European project. One is most alarming in the painting is the fact that the process takes place as a quiet infiltration, by domestication of European symbols so that they do not formally disturb the space, but gradually change its content and meaning on a symbolic level.

For Kipke, these “monuments of European solidarity and unspoken unity” – a unity which is not elected, but forced upon – are silent witnesses which predict a glum future defined by the symbols. The symbols, as denominators of collective values and ideals, are nothing more than tools of political legitimacy, propaganda and construction of common identity. The artist poses a question about the strategic basis of integration processes and they bring. Repression of the local by a foreign dominant force that we are striving for, but which we also cower away from, will lead to a neutralisation of everyday life purified of any local history or tradition. Kipke reverts the usual retrofuturist guideline – thinking of a different, better future due to present discontent – and places the dystopia precisely in the future. His urban landscapes are full of surreal anxiety, intriguing in their almost comic book ominousness, presenting a future of our urban landscapes that seem the same, but then again, completely different from today. If we view the political symbols of the EU as promises of a better, happier and richer tomorrow under the protection of the European elites, the current situation in the Euro zone appears painfully ironic. It is precisely because public discussion or artistic practice regarding Croatia’s entry in the EU is tragically lacking (even today, with the euro crisis!), Kipke’s cycle is important not only because it raises the issue of integration, but also because the vision it shares is dark and critical.