[spectre] exhibition ::: Reconstructions: private = public = private = public =

[Darko Fritz]

Reconstructions: private = public = private = public =

(Selection of Works by Croatian Contemporary Artists)



11 - 18 . 10 . 2009 . REX . Belgrade

openinig: Saturday 10 . 10. 2009 . 19 h

Curator: Darko Fritz

Artists: Helena Bulaja . Boris Cvjetanovic . Ivan Faktor . Sanja  
Ivekovic . Zeljko Jerman . Andreja Kuluncic . Dalibor Martinis . Edita  
Pecotic . Goran Trbuljak . Slaven Tolj



English web site: www.rex.b92.net/private_public

Serbian web site: www.rex.b92.net/privatno_javno



The exhibition 'Reconstructions: private = public = private = public  
=' examines the feminist perception from the 1970s: 'the private is  
the public' i.e. 'the private is the political' using various  
positions selected from Croatian contemporary art since the seventies,  
and outside the feminist discourse. The continuity of four decades of  
creative work of certain artists, as well as the interaction between  
the new works of art and the artistic expression of the 70s, are the  
focal points of this exhibition. Jerman's art diary works 'My  
Year' ('Moja godina') (1977) and 'My Month' ('Moj Mjesec') (1982), as  
well as the video artwork 'Make Up – Make Down' (1978) by Sanja  
Ivekovic and Goran Trbuljak's posters, are representative examples of  
the artistic perception of the relationship between the private and  
the public, expressed in a form of artists' first-person point of view  
through various media typical of the 1970s 'new art  
practices' (performance art, text, photography, video art). Apart from  
these works which use the artist's own body and/or personal  
experience, the exhibition also presents more recent works created in  
the era characterized by complex relations established after the  
phenomenon of reality TV in the 1990s, the erosion of privacy due to  
security measures introduced post September 11, and the ubiquity of  
personal audiovisual technologies and their application in online  
social networks in recent years. Communication of (non-artistic and  
mostly trivial) personal and private content in public places became  
commonplace, from passive listening to other people's conversations  
over mobile phones in public places  to active communication with a  
large number of people, like for example within the social network web  
site FaceBook, where apart from communication with so-called  
'friends' (with an illusion of being able to freely select people to  
communicate with) users legally allow the corporation to use their  
personal information.

Critical positioning of the personal, on one side, and reconstruction  
and recontextualization of historical events and facts, on the other  
side, are the tools used by artists to shape new examinations of the  
personal and the private. Several of the presented works use the  
documentary film form and documentary or archival material.

... The exhibition critically examines the use of communication media  
as well as the 'old' and 'new' technologies within the artistic  
discourse, ranging from the 'first-person point of view' to the  
critical analysis of the relationship between the personal and public  
space. The starting media forms of the works of art vary from artists'  
own bodies (performance of Slaven Tolj, acting of Sanja Ivekovic,  
Jerman's self-portraits) to intimate diary reports and notes (Zeljko  
Jerman, Boris Cvjetanovic) to personal comments and statements (Sanja  
Ivekovic, Goran Trbuljak). Various forms of public space were used,  
both physical and virtual; galleries, urban locations owned by  
corporations or urban public areas (Trbuljak's posters, performance by  
Slaven Tolj), as well as virtual space like television (Martinis), the  
Internet (Bulaja) or the system of city surveillance cameras (Slaven  
Tolj).

The personal and the public always communicate in both directions and  
sometimes (increasingly so) cannot be separated by a clear boundary or  
any boundary at all. Relationships between the personal and the  
private are dynamically activated in any given time, influenced by the  
ever-changing political context and the fluid technological apparatus  
used in the role of a mediator, and reinterpreted in various poetic  
and objective views in the works of art that have been critically  
examined. Darko Fritz



Carried out with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the  
Republic of Serbia, City of Belgrade - Secretariat for Culture,  
Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe/Goethe Institute Belgrade .  
Media support: RDP B92, Vreme, Danas, See Cult

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REX . Jevrejska 16 . Belgrade . Serbia

tel/fax: + 381.11.3284 534, + 381.11.3284 299 . www.rex.b92.net . rex at b92.net

open daily 12 -18 h