new media center_kuda.org

Art organization: interview with Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Ljubljana, 2019

Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša

In 2007, three Slovenian artists joined the conservative Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) and officially changed their names to that of the leader of the party, the Prime Minister of Slovenia at the time, Janez Janša. While they renamed themselves for personal reasons, the boundaries between their lives and their art began to blur in numerous and unforeseen ways. Since then, they have been living their private and public lives, working individually and collectively under the same name, and exploring the philosophical, psychological, political, biopolitical, historical, legal, economic, linguistic, and social implications of the name change; turning their lives into an ongoing performance and their art into a powerful means to question rituals and conventions, and to discuss the status and function of identity-related objects such as signatures, passports, ID cards, credit and debit cards.

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

Art Organisation analyses the phenomenon of artistic (self)organisation and relations within artistic groups and collectives in the post-Yugoslav region during the last fifty years, and the ways it influenced the profile and quality of their artistic production. Research within the project Art Organisation is aimed at group and collective processes of creation and internal dynamics between artists and other participants in them. The focus is on self-organised initiatives outside the framework of official institutions. Through the phenomena of self-organisation, the project questions the role of civil society organisations as potential progressive places in society through dealing with art.

The introduction to the research of group work, joint authorship, working conditions, was conducted during 2017 through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia, and continued during 2018/2019. The research team is composed of members of kuda.org with associates from Belgrade, theoreticians and art historians Milica Pekić and Stevan Vuković and Ana Peraica from Split. During 2019, the interviewed were collectives and groups in the field of contemporary art, theoreticians and art historians, and protagonist artists who realized their practice through group art work.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).

Art organization: interview with Nebojsa Vilik about the group DENES and ZERO, Skopje, 2019

Nebojsa Vilik (Небојша Вилиќ), Skopje, theorist, writer, art historian, lecturer at the University of Skopje at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts and the Faculty of Fine Arts and the first director of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art Skopje.

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

Art Organisation analyses the phenomenon of artistic (self)organisation and relations within artistic groups and collectives in the post-Yugoslav region during the last fifty years, and the ways it influenced the profile and quality of their artistic production. Research within the project Art Organisation is aimed at group and collective processes of creation and internal dynamics between artists and other participants in them. The focus is on self-organised initiatives outside the framework of official institutions. Through the phenomena of self-organisation, the project questions the role of civil society organisations as potential progressive places in society through dealing with art.

The introduction to the research of group work, joint authorship, working conditions, was conducted during 2017 through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia, and continued during 2018/2019. The research team is composed of members of kuda.org with associates from Belgrade, theoreticians and art historians Milica Pekić and Stevan Vuković and Ana Peraica from Split. During 2019, the interviewed were collectives and groups in the field of contemporary art, theoreticians and art historians, and protagonist artists who realized their practice through group art work.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).

Art organization: interview with Božidar Mandić, Porodica bistrih potoka (Family of clear streams), Rudnik mountain, 2019

Božidar Mandić, founder of the Porodica bistrih potoka (Family of clear streams), Rudnik Mountain
In May 1977, Božidar founded the commune Porodica bistrih potoka in the hamlet of Brezovica, at the foot of the Rudnik mountain. The principles of the commune are: Philosophy of the Country, Open Home, Poor Economy and Art. This is where Mandic's life and artistic work begins. Implementing the concept of non-enlightenment enlightenment, the Family of Clear Streams lives a real utopia of realizing an island on which, as part of the struggle for the Planet and the Individual, it opposes globalism, technology, progress and profit ...

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

Art Organisation analyses the phenomenon of artistic (self)organisation and relations within artistic groups and collectives in the post-Yugoslav region during the last fifty years, and the ways it influenced the profile and quality of their artistic production. Research within the project Art Organisation is aimed at group and collective processes of creation and internal dynamics between artists and other participants in them. The focus is on self-organised initiatives outside the framework of official institutions. Through the phenomena of self-organisation, the project questions the role of civil society organisations as potential progressive places in society through dealing with art.

The introduction to the research of group work, joint authorship, working conditions, was conducted during 2017 through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia, and continued during 2018/2019. The research team is composed of members of kuda.org with associates from Belgrade, theoreticians and art historians Milica Pekić and Stevan Vuković and Ana Peraica from Split. During 2019, the interviewed were collectives and groups in the field of contemporary art, theoreticians and art historians, and protagonist artists who realized their practice through group art work.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).

Art organization: interview with Dean Zahtil, founder and member of Labin Art Express (L.A.E.), Labin

Deanom Zahtila, founder and member of the association Labin Art Express (L.A.E.), Labin

Labin Art Express (L.A.E.) - independent underground cultural and art association, established in 1991, based in the ex-coal mine in Labin, Region of Istria, Croatia. In 1993 L.A.E., the first independent radio station in Croatia, closed by governmental decision in 1996, and in 1998 the international multimedia Cultural Centre "Lamparna" in one of abandoned ex-coal mine buildings. It was first step in realization of their capital project "Underground City XXI" construction and establishment of the first real futuristic underground town in the world, in abandoned tunnels and halls of ex-coal mine in Labin, 160 m below ground level, with streets, bars, restaurants, galleries, concert halls, children playground, swimming pool, Mueseum of Coal Mining, "red light" district, etc., with its own Government, Mayor, police and laws. L.A.E. is not a clannish group of artists whose creativity is esoteric, but an exoteric cultural and art association cooperating with artists and "non-artists" who share the fundamental idea that "art today must be: young, all-encompassing, universal, modern, fierce, moral, and synthetical."

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

Art Organisation analyses the phenomenon of artistic (self)organisation and relations within artistic groups and collectives in the post-Yugoslav region during the last fifty years, and the ways it influenced the profile and quality of their artistic production. Research within the project Art Organisation is aimed at group and collective processes of creation and internal dynamics between artists and other participants in them. The focus is on self-organised initiatives outside the framework of official institutions. Through the phenomena of self-organisation, the project questions the role of civil society organisations as potential progressive places in society through dealing with art.

The introduction to the research of group work, joint authorship, working conditions, was conducted during 2017 through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia, and continued during 2018/2019. The research team is composed of members of kuda.org with associates from Belgrade, theoreticians and art historians Milica Pekić and Stevan Vuković and Ana Peraica from Split. During 2019, the interviewed were collectives and groups in the field of contemporary art, theoreticians and art historians, and protagonist artists who realized their practice through group art work.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).

Art organization: interview with members of the curatorial collective What, How & for Whom / WHW, Zagreb

Ivet Ćurlin i Ana Dević

What, How & for Whom/WHW, Zagreb

WHW projects are conceived as platforms for socially engaged models of cultural production and reflection of social reality. WHW was named after its first exhibition: What, How and for Whom, on the occasion of the 152nd anniversary of the Communist Manifesto, held in 2000 in Zagreb. What, how and for whom are the three fundamental issues of every economic organization concerning the planning, concept and realization of exhibitions, as well as the production and distribution of works of art and the artistic position in the labor market. These questions became the motto of WHW’s work and a source of inspiration for all subsequent projects.

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

Art Organisation analyses the phenomenon of artistic (self)organisation and relations within artistic groups and collectives in the post-Yugoslav region during the last fifty years, and the ways it influenced the profile and quality of their artistic production. Research within the project Art Organisation is aimed at group and collective processes of creation and internal dynamics between artists and other participants in them. The focus is on self-organised initiatives outside the framework of official institutions. Through the phenomena of self-organisation, the project questions the role of civil society organisations as potential progressive places in society through dealing with art.

The introduction to the research of group work, joint authorship, working conditions, was conducted during 2017 through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia, and continued during 2018/2019. The research team is composed of members of kuda.org with associates from Belgrade, theoreticians and art historians Milica Pekić and Stevan Vuković and Ana Peraica from Split. During 2019, the interviewed were collectives and groups in the field of contemporary art, theoreticians and art historians, and protagonist artists who realized their practice through group art work.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).

Art organization: interview with Zdenko Badovinac, Ljubljana, October 2018.

Zdenka Badovinac, theorist and curator, director of the Modern Gallery and Museum of Contemporary Art in Ljubljana (MG + MSUM). In her research so far, she has covered a large part of the practice of contemporary art in Slovenia, which includes the work of art groups.

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

Art Organisation analyses the phenomenon of artistic (self)organisation and relations within artistic groups and collectives in the post-Yugoslav region during the last fifty years, and the ways it influenced the profile and quality of their artistic production. Research within the project Art Organisation is aimed at group and collective processes of creation and internal dynamics between artists and other participants in them. The focus is on self-organised initiatives outside the framework of official institutions. Through the phenomena of self-organisation, the project questions the role of civil society organisations as potential progressive places in society through dealing with art.

The introduction to the research of group work, joint authorship, working conditions, was conducted during 2017 through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia, and continued during 2018/2019. The research team is composed of members of kuda.org with associates from Belgrade, theoreticians and art historians Milica Pekić and Stevan Vuković and Ana Peraica from Split. During 2019, the interviewed were collectives and groups in the field of contemporary art, theoreticians and art historians, and protagonist artists who realized their practice through group art work.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).

Art organization: interview with members of the MAGNET group, Novi Sad  

Jelena Marjanov, Ivan Pravdić and Siniša Rešin-Tucić

MAGNET Group, Belgrade / Novi Sad

The "Magnet" group was founded in 1996 by scholars from the "Tradition of the Avant-Garde" Literary School, which was initiated and led by Vujica Rešin Tucić from 1993 to 1995 in Belgrade, Palić and Ečka. The core of the group consisted of Nune Popović, Ivan Pravdić and Jelena Marjanov, and Siniša Tucić, Nikola Popović, Marija Lončar, Vladimir Acan and Mina Vuletić participated in the work, as well as other associates of different professions and ages. The group "Magnet" operated until 1998, with the goal of finding and presenting a creative and non-violent way for a mass fight against the totalitarian regime of Slobodan Milošević.

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

Art Organisation analyses the phenomenon of artistic (self)organisation and relations within artistic groups and collectives in the post-Yugoslav region during the last fifty years, and the ways it influenced the profile and quality of their artistic production. Research within the project Art Organisation is aimed at group and collective processes of creation and internal dynamics between artists and other participants in them. The focus is on self-organised initiatives outside the framework of official institutions. Through the phenomena of self-organisation, the project questions the role of civil society organisations as potential progressive places in society through dealing with art.

The introduction to the research of group work, joint authorship, working conditions, was conducted during 2017 through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia, and continued during 2018/2019. The research team is composed of members of kuda.org with associates from Belgrade, theoreticians and art historians Milica Pekić and Stevan Vuković and Ana Peraica from Split. During 2019, the interviewed were collectives and groups in the field of contemporary art, theoreticians and art historians, and protagonist artists who realized their practice through group art work.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).

Art organization: interview with Marko Pogačnik (OHO group), Ljubljana, October 2018.

Marko Pogačnik umetnik, osnivač pokreta i umetničke grupe OHO, Kranj-Ljubljana, nakon toga inicijator transformacije ove grupe u novu umetničku inicijativu Družina u Šempasu (Družina v Šempasu), danas je umetnik istraživač aktivan u internacionalnoj mreži.

The OHO Group, a Slovene art collective active from 1966-1971 in Ljubljana. Members included Marko Pogačnik, Iztok Geister Plamen, Marjana Ciglič, Milenko Matanović, Andraž Šalamun, Tomaž Šalamun, David Nez, Matjaž Hanšek, Naško Križnar, Vojin Kovač Chubby, Aleš Kermavner, Franci Zagoričnik, Marika Pogačnik, Zvona Ciglič, Nuša and Srečo Dragan, a.o.

The members of the OHO group developed various strategies and approaches that they first called “reism,” a type of arte povera, land art and body art, processual and conceptual art. They aspired to “liberate” situations and objects and present them to the public outside of their fixed functions. The term “Oho” refers to the observation of forms (with the eye, “oko”, and ear, “uho”) in their immediate presence, and is also an exclamation of astonishment, said Marko Pogačnik, the group’s leader: “Because when we uncover the essence of a thing, that is when we exclaim ‘oho’.” A specific approach toward objects, a distancing from the weight of meaning, is apparent in Edicija Oho (Oho Edition), where literature and visual art are reduced to objectivity. Artists such as Pogačnik, Geister, Hanžek, Matanović, Dreja and others created their “books” by printing objects, drawings and sentences on single pages placed in small boxes. These books are objects, with their pages being various forms that can be handled, jumbled letters that must be arranged to form a sentence. A book should be heard, looked through. It is an “open work,” one which, demonstrating “reistic” tautology, suggests a game.

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

Art Organisation analyses the phenomenon of artistic (self)organisation and relations within artistic groups and collectives in the post-Yugoslav region during the last fifty years, and the ways it influenced the profile and quality of their artistic production. Research within the project Art Organisation is aimed at group and collective processes of creation and internal dynamics between artists and other participants in them. The focus is on self-organised initiatives outside the framework of official institutions. Through the phenomena of self-organisation, the project questions the role of civil society organisations as potential progressive places in society through dealing with art.

The introduction to the research of group work, joint authorship, working conditions, was conducted during 2017 through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia, and continued during 2018/2019. The research team is composed of members of kuda.org with associates from Belgrade, theoreticians and art historians Milica Pekić and Stevan Vuković and Ana Peraica from Split. During 2019, the interviewed were collectives and groups in the field of contemporary art, theoreticians and art historians, and protagonist artists who realized their practice through group art work.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).

Art organization: conversation with members of the Multimedia Institute mi2: Tomislav Medak and Petar Milat, Zagreb

Multimedijalni institut (MI2) is a non-profit association working at the intersections of culture, arts, technology and activism. Since its early days it has organized around a multi-facetted community that weaves together interests in diverse cultural and social fields: 1) critically inflected digital arts, film, music and literature; 2) digital commons: free software, free culture and open access; 3) philosophy and theory; 4) cultural networking, advocacy and grass-root organizing; 5) protection of public domain and struggles for spatial justice.

Locally it is mostly identified with the social and cultural center MaMa in Zagreb, where it’s organizing cutting-edge cultural, educational and technology programs, hosting a local hacker community and providing an open venue for other cultural initiatives. But it is also the co-organizer of Human Rights Film Festival, electronic music events, publishing activities and the Croatian localizer of Creative Commons licenses.

MI2 is a catalyst for cultural collaboration and grassroots political activism both locally and throughout the former Yugoslav region. In early 2000s it was instrumental in initiating the Clubture network and a number of other cultural policy initiatives. In the latter part of 2000s it was part of the alliance that initiated the Right to the City Zagreb, which it still supports. It has also helped initiate and support the series of un-conferences “Nothing will happen“, bringigt together hackers from throughout the former Yugoslav countries and beyond.

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

The research within the Art Organization project is focused on group and collective processes, within the relationship between artists and other participants in them. The aim of the research is to investigate a specific shift towards self-organized initiatives outside the framework of official institutions, and its consequences in the distribution of roles in the world of art. The research is partly conducted through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).

Interview with Dejan Sretenović (Autopsia Group), Belgrade, 2017

Dejan Sretenović, art historian, theorist and curator of the Center for Visual Culture at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, previously director and program editor of the Center for Contemporary Art Belgrade (1994-2000)

Autopsia is a depersonalized art projection that deals with music, art and film production. Autopsia brings together authors of different professions in the realization of their projects. The artistic practice began in London in the late 1970s, and was continued in the 1980s in the art centers of the former Yugoslavia. Since 1990, Autopsia has been operating from Prague. At the beginning of its operation, Autopsia released a dozen MCs, and in the period after 1989, about twenty CDs. The compositions of the Autopsy can also be found on numerous compilations published by various publishers around the world. The music production is accompanied by extensive visual production that includes original graphic objects, design of flyers, booklets, CDs, books and movies, as well as the website autopsia.net and its branches "Autopsia TV" and "Illuminating Technologies".

www.autopsia.net
www.illuminating-technologies.com

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

Art Organisation analyses the phenomenon of artistic (self)organisation and relations within artistic groups and collectives in the post-Yugoslav region during the last fifty years, and the ways it influenced the profile and quality of their artistic production. Research within the project Art Organisation is aimed at group and collective processes of creation and internal dynamics between artists and other participants in them. The focus is on self-organised initiatives outside the framework of official institutions. Through the phenomena of self-organisation, the project questions the role of civil society organisations as potential progressive places in society through dealing with art.

The introduction to the research of group work, joint authorship, working conditions, was conducted during 2017 through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia, and continued during 2018/2019. The research team is composed of members of kuda.org with associates from Belgrade, theoreticians and art historians Milica Pekić and Stevan Vuković and Ana Peraica from Split. During 2019, the interviewed were collectives and groups in the field of contemporary art, theoreticians and art historians, and protagonist artists who realized their practice through group art work.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).