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at the Museum of the Moving Image, Sunday, September 16, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Up close and Personal
Video works from the MMSU collection Curated by Branko Franceschi Approximately 50 minutes long selection of the single channel video works from the collection of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka, brings together the classic black and white video works by the icons of the 70s video art in Eastern Europe Sanja Iveković and Dalibor Martinis, with the works by the generation of artists who established themselves after 2000 such as Tomislav Brajnovic, Nemanja Cvijanovic, Alen Floricic, David Maljkovic and Lada Sega.
Though restricted in length, scope and mode of presentation, selection successfully presents three prevailing interest of the 40 years long video production in Croatia: interest in media, interest in oneself and interest in social dynamics. List of works:
1. Dalibor Martinis & Sanja Iveković, TV timer, 1973 2. Sanja Iveković, Personal Cuts, 1982 3. Lada Sega, Fragile No. 001, 2002 4. Alen Floričić, Untitled No ½, 2002 5. Tomislav Brajnović, Wooden Angel, 2005 6. Nemanja Cvijanović, Mantra, 2005 7. David Maljković, Lost memories from these days, 2006
1. Dalibor Martinis & Sanja Iveković, TV timer, 1973 - His first work in the video medium (together with Sanja Iveković), entitled TV-Timer, was first shown at the Trigon '73 international exhibition in Graz, Austria, and was a 25-minute black-and-white video film showing the intervention of the artists in TV broadcasts by means of other media (telephone, watch) or by the appearance of the artists themselves. With the established relationship between the real space (of TV broadcast) and the illusory space (the artists' interventions), the authors clearly showed that they are not merely using video as a means of personal expression, but as an opportunity for critical relation to another medium - in this case, to broadcast national television programmes. Director's biography: Dalibor Martinis is an artist and a video maker. He has exhibited his videotapes, video/interactive and site-specific installations in many international exhibitions such as Sao Paolo Biennale, Dokumenta, Venice Biennale, and film/video festivals in Berlin, Tokyo, Montreal, San Francisco, and Locarno etc. Martinis received several international awards (Tokyo Video Festival 1984, Wroclaw 1991, Triest 1996, etc.) and his videos have been broadcast by national televisions in Europe. He participated in the international exhibitions "Arts for Television" (Boston, Vienna, San Francisco, Montreal, New York), "Video skulptur-retrospektiv und aktuel" (Koeln, Berlin), "Europa, Europa", Bonn; recently, in the shows "After The Wall" at Moderna Museet, Stockholm; "50 Years of Art in Middle Europe" at Museum moderner kunst Ludwig, Vienna, "Blood&Honey" Sammlung Essl/Vienna etc. His works are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art/New York, Stedelijk Museum/Amsterdam, ZKM Karlsruhe, New York Public Library, The Museum of Contemporary Art/Zagreb, etc.
2. Sanja Iveković, Personal Cuts, 1982 - She uses the performative potential of the mass media, of magazines and newspapers, of advertising, of “public” and – very decisively – also of “private” photography in order to bring her own person into play in the broad field of representation as a structural reference figure. Iveković follows “the woman” in the wide field of media representation, using her method of “personal cuts” to reveal empty spaces that the signifier “woman” continually highlights as it traverses this field under a host of various circumstances. Director's biography: Sanja Iveković 1949 in Zagreb (HR); 1968–1971 studied graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb; since 1973 works with video. Lives in Zagreb (HR).Her art production has spanned a range of media such as photo graphy, performance, video and installations. The point of departure of her work was (and has remained until today) her own person, her own life - and by putting this theme into a broader context - the situation of women in our time and society. On Croatian art scene she was the first woman artist who called herself a feminist artist. She lectures at the Center for Women's Studies in Zagreb since its begining in 1994 and is a founder of Electra – The Women Arts Center, Zagreb. 3. Lada Sega, Fragile No. 001, 2002 - Lada Sega’s close-ups of lush greenery contrasts fragile beauty of the nature with superimposed Fragile label. Heightened colure intensity of grass and slow camera moves creates nostalgic aura framing the inevitable decay of nature under the exploitation by consumerist society that protects its superficial products, while destroying and neglected its most precious possession. Director's biography: Lada Sega was born 1970 in Rijeka. In 1996 she graduated painting from Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice. In 1999 she was awarded the USA Arts Link scholarship. She lives and works on the island of Susak and in Barcelona. 4. Alen Floričić, Untitled No ½, 2002 - In Alen Floričić's video (Untitled, 2001) a night scene of a window view opens up before us into a lit up living room. This is a view downwards, which somehow works voyeuristically, seeming as if one were somehow standing in front of the window. In the room a transmission of TV snow and a person lying on the settee can be perceived. The person is the artist himself. It works like some kind of hologram, appearing and disappearing, never disappearing totally. Floričić uses himself in all his video works - the body/artist/person - as the source material from which the videos are made of. What is typical is the sharpness with which he deals with himself in everyday situations, which are intertwined with satiric-sarcastic elements. Most video works present the artist performing different absurd actions. These repeat into infinity and often function self-destructively. It is about a confrontation between the public and the private, and with it also, the artist and the artwork, as well as the perception of the viewer. Interwoven is the author's everyday life and the paradoxical condition in which he has found himself. Director's biography: Alen Floricic (born 1968, Pula) is a modern Croatian artist, working in ambient and installation art. Floricic began his art career after graduating from a sculpture school in Rijeka in 1993. He worked with individual paintings and sculptures in the 1990s. More recently he has become known for his urban installations, ambient art, and artistic videos. Floricic explores the body through short, poignant videos which reduce the human form to endless, repeating, rhythmic patterns. Shown in the corridors and bathrooms of the museum, the videos will surprise the viewer with their candor and slightly sinister humor. He currently lives and works in Rabac.
5. Tomislav Brajnović, Wooden Angel, 2005 - Wooden Angel together with Pray for the Peace and Buddhas of Bamiyan creates Brajnovic's iconoclastic video trilogy that upon its presentation in 2006 has aroused a heated debate within the Croatian public. Wooden Angel in single shot and static camera presents grand and baroque vision of flame consuming the medieval wooden head of an angel. So far, the trilogy is the most powerful and provoking body of work in Brajnovic’s symbolic criticism of the ideology generated manipulation, especially, the one contaminating religions.
Director's biography: Born in 1965 Zagreb, Croatia. Graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb 1993, and completed a Masters Degree at St. Martins College of Art London in 2003. His works, “Arbre Magique” and “South Station” which were made during a collaboration with “Mobius” (Boston 2000), “Greenhouse” (London 2003) and “Flat Holm Project” (Cardiff 2005) are characteristic of his way of working and reacting to context. He uses documentary material, sound, image, objects, and film with little editorial intervention in an attempt to create an authentic trace of their origins. He states that he “Understands art to be inseparable from our beliefs, thoughts and deeds which are in turn determined by place and time of birth.” “The place and time of birth create and form our consciousness.This in turn affects our personality, our nationality, religion and customs. Language depends on this. To raise ourselves from the plane set and to envisage critically our own position means to change ourselves. By changing place we are changing the formative context of our individuality.”
6. Nemanja Cvijanović, Mantra, 2005 - Nemanja Cvijanović made his name by witty and humorous works targeting paradoxes of politics. His performative video “Mantra” 2005 was recorded in front of the famous waterfalls of Jajce, Bosnian city in which political fundaments of socialist Yugoslavia were conceived during the II World War in 1943. The date was during existence of socialist Yugoslavia celebrated as the Day of Republic and waterfalls became one of the visual symbols of Yugoslavia’s unity. During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina city was occupied, population expelled and the famous waterfalls destroyed. Ten years later Cvijanovic himself is portrayed in front of the famous waterfalls vista while singing bare-chested the repetition of the socialist song verses: “Hey, role up our sleeves, let the sweat flow, we’ll build a new man”, mocking the futility of the socialist utopia.
Director's biography: Nemanja Cvijanović was born in 1972 in Rijeka, graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti of Venice, Italy. He is currently taking his postgraduate courses at Facolta di Arte e Design in Venice. He resides and works in Rijeka and Venice. In his work the artist establishes the connections with the events of the recent past (Antifascist struggle, revolutionary movements in the Third World). He brings the viewer in an intriguing relationship with memory, the changes in systems of values, propaganda, politics, consumerism and mass media. The artist definitely declares that communication is his sole weapon and that it is by no means the art for the art's sake. His intention is to preserve the censored or the forgotten past by means of the aesthetics of the contemporary and historic styles.
7. David Maljković, Lost memories from these days, 2006 - Lost Memories from These Days belongs to a group of works created between 2003 and 2006 including the renowned Again for Tomorrow and Scene for New Heritage which always involved various media like collages, video and drawings. Maljkovic’s entire oeuvre of this period poses questions about the existence of vision and insists on the enlightening quality of art in opposition to the present-day tendency to dismiss relevant historical achievements, like the visionary concepts of late modernism. Moreover, it is a personal quest for the meaning of art, an unbiased search for the mysterious, elusive, lost beauty of creation, an escapist flight to a realm of the future. The works evolve around the emblematic architecture of the Memorial Centre for a Partisan Hospital designed by Vojin Bakic in 1981, and Giuseppe Sambito’s Italian Pavilion for the Zagreb Fairgrounds dating from 1962. For Maljkovic, the expressive monumentality and distinct style of these buildings give them a status which surpasses mere representation of mannerisms in late modernism. Instead, they are perceived as time capsules, spaces so intensively charged by their own era, that they become means of transfer for spiritual Director's biography: David Maljkovic (b.1973) lives and works in Zagreb and Berlin and is one of the most sought after artists of his generation. Recent solo exhibition include: Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka; Centre de Creation Contemporain, Tours; Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam. Upcoming solo exhibitions in 2007: P.S.1 New York, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; CAPC Musee d' Art Contemporain, Bordeaux and Kunstverein Hamburg. Selected Group Exhibitions include: Magellanic Cloud, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Ideal City – Invisible Cities, Zamosc & Potsdam; Downloads from Future, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo; Mercury in Retrograde, De Appel, Amsterdam; Busan Biennale; Again for Tomorrow, Royal College of Art, London; Go InsideTirana Biennial 3; The Imaginary Number, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin and 9. Istanbul Biennale.
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