[spectre] Exhibition announcement: 366 Liberation Rituals | 16 November, 19.00 pm

[Open Space]

° 366 Liberation Rituals, 17 November - 15 December 2010


Opening: 16 November, 7 pm

Project curators: Margarethe Makovec and Anton Lederer

Participating artist:

Igor Grubic


366 Liberation Rituals. Every day, and at least a whole year long. The day
over the 365 days of a normal year not only hints at the extraordinary
quality of the project but already indicates the direction: one year is not
enough, it cannot be enough to liberate oneself. To free oneself from the
dominant thought patterns of contemporary society. And to break free towards
new thinking, towards new readings of our everyday surroundings. Using art.
To leave the space of art, this protected field, and to enter into a
dialogue with a reality that is constantly being redefined by our
contemporaries. To try to intervene in reality through an artistic language.
The colour red. To focus on symbols and texts of critical thinking. To keep
down the costs of the individual interventions while at the same time
creating as much meaning as possible. In a European country to establish
references back to its socialist past. To disobey 366 times.


Information on the artist:

Igor Grubic

Red fountain

On the day of the official visit of the U.S. President George W. Bush to
Croatia, in front of the National Bank of Croatia at the Croatian Nobles
Square (where also the International Monetary Fund offices are situated) I
coloured the water in the fountain blood red, symbolically alluding to the
blood of the victims of Bush’s international policy as well as protesting
against the IMF policy. The action of colouring the fountain was carried out
as an illegal action, despite strong security measures and a large number of
police officers monitoring the square as well as the circulation of
citizens. The action also served as a direct provocation to the atmosphere
of an emergency-like state in the country during Bush’s visit, as well as
the regulation of public space and citizens’ behaviour, ranging from
subservient cleaning of parks to welcome the American president, up to
covering up and neutralizing any attempt of expressing criticism and
resistance.

Scarves and monuments

By placing scarves on monuments, I aimed at reviving them and giving them an
aura of active fighters in our everyday life. Placing the scarves on
monuments was often done at the same time as “Little quotes lessons”. Both
actions were carried out with the aim of awakening and questioning (the
impact of) our cultural and political heritage. I placed the scarves on
monuments to heroes of the anti-fascist movement.

Bicycle and flag

“Under all those flags that fly... one day I accidently found a way... I am
free...”. (from a song by Haustor)

I wrapped the Croatian flag around its pole and around it I tied an unmarked
red cloth. With this act I wanted to symbolically strip the state flag of
its meaning. At the break of dawn I drove around the city on a bicycle, as a
‘phantom of freedom’. I managed to bring a smile to the faces of sleepy
commuters on their way to work.


Christmas trees

Several days after New Year’s celebration, I would walk around different
city districts in the morning, looking for Christmas trees that had been
thrown out as garbage. I walked around neighbourhoods representing different
social structures: middle-class, elite, as well as barracks where homeless
people live. I put red baubles and a red star on top of the trees that I
came across, suggesting a potential unity in a celebratory nostalgia for the
past times.



° Series of seminars and workshops by Gülsen Bal and Igor Grubic

„System Errors“...

Dates: 9 - 19 November

Location: Institut für Kunst und Gestaltung, TU Wien and Open Space

Language: English

Critical practice that builds upon the mapping of the creative moment of
thinking differently implies an awareness of the mechanisms of methodology
and the interaction of different planes of practice. What different kinds of
engagement and encounters can thus arise from the possibilities and
limitations of multi-directional models of curating that situate themselves
at the edge of spaces of production? The hereby emerging new “models of
production” call for an expanded notion of what creative practice is or
could be. Certainly, this is to realise that one of the potentialities of
art – understood as an activity of creatively interacting with the world –
lies in exploring the complexities surrounding the “production of subject.”
Furthermore, as O’Sullivan points out, critical practice today faces the
fundamentally political question of “where are the dissenting/creative
subjects of today? And how are they being produced?”

To address potential “models of production” of contemporary artistic
practice in relation to these dynamics, the artist Igor Grubic will run a
three days workshop conceived in dialogue with his installation work 366
liberation rituals at Open Space – Zentrum für Kunstprojekte. This
installation forms part of the project System Errors, a series of
micro-political actions and interventions performed by the artist on an
almost daily basis seeking to disturb or rearticulate the cultural meanings
of acts of power.

To underpin these concerns, the course will provide an introduction by
Gülsen Bal, the founding director of Open Space, to the current discursive
shifts occurring within contemporary creative practice and future
perspectives these new crossovers between art and politics may produce.

This seminars and workshops will be held in English.

For more information see:

http://www.openspace-zkp.org/2010/en/events.php?y=2010&p=40
http://twoday.tuwien.ac.at/vcu/topics/8+System+Errors


supported by:

BM:UKK
Stadt Wien - Kulturabteilung MA 7

We would like to thank our colleagues from Zagreb Ivana Bago and Antonia
Maja_a who have cooperated with us within the framework of the long-term
project Land of Human Rights and who have made possible the 366 Liberation
Rituals by Igor Grubic on the part of the g-mk | galerija miroslav
kraljevic.


° About us:
Open Friday, Saturday 13.00 - 18.30 and open for the rest of the week days
by appointment only.
Admission free

Open Space
Zentrum für Kunstprojekte
Lassingleithnerplatz 2
A- 1020 Vienna
Austria

(+43) 699 115 286 32

for more info: office at openspace-zkp.org

http://www.openspace-zkp.org

Open Space - Zentrum für Kunstprojekte aims to create the most vital
facilities for art concerned with contributing a model strategy for
cross-border and interregional projects on the basis of improving new
approach.
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