PERSONAL AND OTHER OBSTACLES

Goran Trbuljak, Greta Gallery, November 28 – December 4, 2011

By: Anita Kojundžić

It has been 40 years to the day since the first official introduction of Goran Trbuljak, one of the most significant Croatian conceptual artists. In 1971, at the Gallery of the Zagreb Student Centre, he showed only one poster that read “I do not wish to show anything new or original.” That same space, only a few months ago, hosted another poster, opposite the original, reading: “Old, bold, and still untalented.” And that was it. Forget the pomp, sentimentality and pathetic retrospectives, only wry humour and the everlasting uncompromising attitude. In this light, the exhibition “Personal and Other Obstacles” in the Greta Gallery is extremely “encompassing and talkative.” more >

SOCIALISM AND MODERNITY, OR MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

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PHALLUS REVOLUTION

Long Live Freedom!, group Magnet, Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, from November 18th till December 15th, 2011

By Tihana Bertek

An artist who does not deal in revolution in this day and age, should do nothing. - Nune Popović

Can art, in the form of civil disobedience, be the catalyst of social and political change? Activities of the Magnet group from Belgrade (1996-1998) are proof that it can. As a more radical example of activism in art in these parts, Magnet is a controversial phenomenon in recent Serbian history and art for a number of reasons, even today.  The group’s core were Nune Popović, Jelena Marjanov and Ivan Pravdić, with participation from Siniša Tucić, Nikola Popović, Marija Lončar, Mina Vuletić and others. During two years, they put on eight performances in order to oppose the totalitarian regime of Slobodan Milošević, artistically and non-violently. ‘People have to realise that all art naturally strives to be applied in reality’, Popović says, while Pravdić explains how we need to build ‘a space of artistic freedom which directly endangers the Serbian state, a nest of deadness, sloth, illness, war.’ These guerilla-style performances happened on the street, they were immediate and unambiguous, with consciously applied nuances of dramatic rhetoric, using public spaces as a stage for rebellion. more >