[spectre] Fw: [syndicate] GRZINIC: Sanja Ivekovic, Croatia - canceled from the participation at the Sao Paulo Biennale 2002

[clement Thomas]

please read and support.

----- Original Message -----
From: "anna balint" <epistolaris@freemail.hu>
To: <syndicate@anart.no>
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 6:03 PM
Subject: [syndicate] GRZINIC: Sanja Ivekovic, Croatia - canceled from the
participation at the Sao Paulo Biennale 2002


>    Performing the curator: against the curatorial methods of destroying
>    artists
>
>
>    I decided to write this statement being revolted by the case of what
>    happened to Sanja Ivekovic, a Croat artist, first selected for the Sao
>    Paulo Biennial 2002 by Leonida Kovac, the appointed curator, and than
>    being by the same curator, so to speak overnight, after nearly half of
>    year of Ivekovic preparation of the project, rejected, dismissed, kick
in
>    the but. Instead of Sanja Ivekovic, Leonida Kovac, decided to propose
>    another artist!
>
>    Firstly, I am not interested in the reasons, as here it is no one
reason
>    that counts. For me the question of reasons, the pro and contra
arguments
>    does not exist. No one reason, anyway, can be the one that legitimizes
>    such a decision by the curator. Only the death of the artist can give a
>    pertinent reason for substituting him ore her, after being selected and
>    publicly declared to be the representative, or the artist decision by
>    himself or herself to quite the project.
>
>
>    The rule is very simple, the curator is given a huge privilege, this
is,
>    the absolute privilege of having free hands to select any artist, but
soon
>    afterward he or she is in the position of a subordinate link in the
>    alliance of curator-artists, that means he or she transfers this
privilege
>    to the chosen artists. No positive reasons can be found for rejecting
the
>    selected artist, no instantiation can be taken into an account for a
>    legitimization of such an act. The moment the curator wants to play
>    further the pathetic figure of power, showing his or her "fragile"
power,
>    with an act of a rejection of the selected artist, he or she becomes
just
>    a clown and a bastard, surpassing the line of the disaster. A curator,
not
>    mater the name or gender, that rejects the firstly chosen, and publicly
>    denoted artist, transforms himself or herself into misery.
>
>    If it will be a court of honor and principle for the curators (as it is
>    for journalists, as their both perform a public critical work), such a
>    curator will have to be criticized by the institution, by the Biennial,
>    and by the ones that hired him or her and gave him or her the mandate
to
>    perform his or her curatorial job. And any other artists that will be
>    asked to take the place of Sanja Ivekovic or better of the rejected
>    artists will have to say : NO! If such an activist solidarity and
movement
>    will be possible to arose, maybe, a different balance will be created
>    between artists and curators.
>
>
>    In the end, the artists has no other way than to react with all means,
as
>    it is no a possible single reason of legitimization of this
manipulation
>    with his or her concepts.
>
>    Marina Grzinic, Ljubljana, January 11, 2002
> -