[spectre] exhibition: grey) (area ::: Petar Grimani: XXXXXXXX

[Darko Fritz]

grey) (area - space of contemporary and media art, Korcula

Petar Grimani: XXXXXXXX


Monday 13th and Tuesday 14th  July . 21 - 23 h

free entrance




This project is dedicated to memory of victims of Srebrenica massacre  
(9th - 114th  July  2005)

The exhibition is a complex art installation which consists of  
drawings, paintings, video, sound, light and shadows that are  
specifically made for the occasion.

The installation, that occupies five cellars within the gallery,  
represented with still and moving images of bison and the  
concentration camp Auschwitz, questions the achievements of  
civilisation in terms of Euro/Asian space and ethnic cleansing.

‘Where is that bison?’ (20 min, 2008) is the title of introduction  
video work, which follows the author’s flow of conscience in  
contemplating bison.

Spatial colour shadows of bison drawings are a separate installation,  
while acrylic painting of human shadows is made on carpet (3x5 meters).
The installation is spatially concluded with new video work that uses  
footage of the author’s performance in Auschwitz II (Birkenau) from  
2008 following the final exit to the gallery’s terrace on the  
seashore.
The artist’s obsessive search for European bison, that powerful  
creature almost completely extinguished in Europe and Asia, refers to  
a desire for a return to traditional, basic values that include unity  
of human beings and nature.

The aim of the project is to use the allegorical figure of the  
European buffalo, a species almost totally extinct in this territory,  
which has multiple significations, and represents natural strength and  
primordial values of the ancient times, but also can be transferred to  
the context of the recent war in the territory of ex-Yugoslavia and  
the PTSD syndrome that continues to affect ex war veterans.

The question we can ask is: «Is our civilization utterly repressive  
and violent as it continuously endangers and violates other species  
and the harmony that used to exist among the different species and the  
nature? »

The artist chooses non-violence by refusing to actually kill the  
animal, but takes photographs instead, which symbolizes his desire to  
restore this harmony that seems to be lost.

The installation xxxx is part of the project ‘where is that bison?’  
started in 2008, shown on Drawing Trienal and 'T-HTnagrada at msu. hr' in  
Zagreb and  'Paso Doble' and 'Dopust – days of performance' in Split.


/// from artist’s statement:

.....................“Where is it? Where is that bison? There has to  
be a bison somewhere around here! Where’s the bison – I have to  
find a bison!”

A multi-layered parable about the obsessive search for a European  
bison, a magnificent being which is almost extinct on the vast  
territory of Eurasia I have used as an allegory about searching for a  
master drawer. The video work that would be projected onto a drawing  
on a wall tells a story of a man who is searching for a bison where  
there is none and in a way we can interpret the symptoms of PTSP in  
this way, as well as a need to bring fiction back down to the matter,  
which a drawing is certainly capable of. Exactly the cave motifs of a  
bull can serve as a template for describing ritually magical  
obsessions, as well as a mechanism of anticipation.

.....................“There was this European bison and I have to  
kill it! I have to kill it because a bison is a really strong  
creature. There is so much strength in it that when I kill it I will  
become as strong as the bison!”

The European bison exits the area of hunt and becomes a symbol of  
prehistoric Europe which is in traces preserved to this day in the  
protected natural parks, but it is important to emphasize, through a  
way that necessarily demanded a human intention or even a more serious  
intervention. Even the mythological Europe – its name means a place  
where the sun comes to the Mediterranean on the back of a giant bull.
But the arrival of civilisation has urbanized the territory of Europe  
and coexistence with nature swiftly changes - the more westward we go,  
the more settled and populated and concrete-covered it gets. Today’s  
European centre of government is right in the centre of the radius of  
some three hundred kilometres in the heart of the most urbanized and  
most densely populated area on planet Earth, which is obvious if we  
look at the night photographs taken from satellites orbiting the planet.

.....................“Oh, my – when I see it, great as it is,  
standing somewhere on a hill, and then… BOOM! When I hit it on the  
head and it falls down to the ground and I come and put my hand on it  
when it is still warm, oh dear, what a feeling will that be. I have to  
find that bison and strike it in the head and run while it is still  
breathing… And lean my head on it, put my arms around and let all  
this strength coming from the soil and the hills enter into me. And  
let the last bison die.”

Drawing is obvious in its intentions and precise as a discipline which  
can be explained or interpreted as leaving a trace or as an extension  
of a mental projection which is materialized in the controlling trace  
of the line. When a hunter shoots an arrow, throws a spear or releases  
a trigger, we assume that the fired projectile flies in a straight line.

.....................“…because then I have to hit it directly in  
its head, and I have to be very, very, very careful when I aim,  
because if it attacks me, I’m history.”

Is there a purpose or a function in a drawing? Of course there is,  
even though it seems neglected and unimportant when compared to the  
technological development and the possibilities it offers (especially  
digital image editing). There is no medium which can better or more  
precise intensify and train our senses and combine the experience of  
watching and the creative articulation. Just like when we tune a  
guitar we train our hearing receptors by listening to the tone and  
colour of the sound, in the same manner the process of drawing  
synchronises us with what we are watching and develops sensitivity in  
relation to the line, composition, weight, lightness and intensity of  
light.

.....................“…we will become one. And in one moment I will  
think about killing myself, too, and then your spirit will say –  
Don’t! And all those Indians and indigenous original inhabitants of  
old Europe will be with me and we’ll thank you for letting us kill  
you.”

Personally, I am convinced that it is not possible to be a good visual  
artist, even in contemporary art, if one does not master the art of  
drawing

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contact: Darko Fritz darko at darkofritz.net / tel + 385 [0] 91.5800193


grey) (area program 2009: Lemeh 42 (Italy) . Petar Grimani  
(Croatia) .  Ivan Marusic Klif  (Croatia) . Toni Mestrović   
(Croatia) . Samuel Cepeda (Mexico) .  Nina Czegledy (Canada) and  
Marcus Neustetter (South Africa)

participants in gray) (area program: Veaceslav Ahunov, (Uzbekistan),  
Abilsait Atabekov (Kazahstan), Dunja Blažević, Boris Cvjetanovic  
(Zagreb), Gem Sqash (Adam Hyde and Ntsikelelo Ntshingila), Ulan  
Djaparov (Kazahstan), Ivan Faktor (Osijek), Kontejner (Zagreb), Lemeh  
42 (Italy), Faruk Loncarevic (Bosnia and Hercegovina), Alban Muja  
(Kosova), Edita Pecotić (Korcula / London), Ana Peraica (Split),  
PRO.BA (Bosnia and Hercegovina), Radioqalia (Adam Hyde and Honnor  
Hager, New Zealand), Lala Raščić (Sarajevo – Zagreb), Stefan Rusu  
(Moldavia / Romania), Tomo Savić-Gecan (Zagreb - Amsterdam), Slaven  
Tolj (Dubrovnik), Transfer (Zagreb), Goran Trbuljak (Zagreb), Alexandr  
Ugay (Kazahstan), Dražen Vitolović (Sovinjak / Rijeka) i Enes Zlatar  
(Bosnia and Hercegovina).