Labor, Work and Art: Collectives, Community Based Art and Hippies

Dr. Suzana Milevska Endowed Professor for Central and South Eastern European Art Histories

Academy of Fine Art Vienna 28 October 2014 Sentences on Conceptual Art by Sol Lewitt

•Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach. •Rational judgements repeat rational judgements. •Irrational judgements lead to new experience. •Formal art is essentially rational. •Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically. •If the artist changes his mind midway through the execution of the piece he compromises the result and repeats past results. •The artist's will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion. His wilfulness may only be ego. •When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist who would be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations. "Let's talk of a system that transforms all the social organisms into a work of art, in which the entire process of work is included... something in which the principle of production and consumption takes on a form of quality. It's a Gigantic project." Ivan Shadr, Stone as a weapon of the proletariat, 1927, bronze, Moscow, State Tretyakov Gallery Alfredo Jaar "Karl Marx Lounge", 2011, Amsterdam, the space Project 1975 of the Amsterdam's Stedeljik Museum. analyzes the relationship between the theories of the philosopher and today's economy

The books that constitute a unique "anti- monument“ dedicated to Karl Marx, one of the thinkers who most marked our modernity, are 350. The Marx Lounge, is the title of Jaar’s work "When the financial crisis broke out, Marx was brought back to life from that capitalist system that had done anything to contradict his theories. Is it not paradoxical?”. From this ironic observation, he decided to make available to a wide audience that ideas' heritage that many experts have suddenly exhumed to analyze the current economy. In a reading room, equipped with desks - covered in volumes - chairs, armchairs and table lamps, the spectator can range from Marxist theory to the post-colonial thought, from the anti-liberalism's key texts to the analysis of globalization. Marxian economics concerns itself variously with the analysis of crisis in capitalism, the role and distribution of the surplus product and surplus value in various types of economic systems, the nature and origin of economic value, the impact of class and class struggle on economic and political processes, and the process of economic evolution. We will use some of the basic Marxist concepts of political economy, e.g. - use value and exchange value, - human labour and surplus, - commodity, property, - supply and demand - base and superstructure

INTRODUCTION ǀ METHODOLOGY ǀ RESEARCH METHODS ǀ CASE STUDIES that are topical for understanding the contradictions between - the means, - forces, - relations and - modes of production, and - building, distributing and redistributing the capital.

INTRODUCTION ǀ METHODOLOGY ǀ RESEARCH METHODS ǀ CASE STUDIES Socialist Surrealism Gezim Qendro, Albanian historian of art and curator Mladen Stilinovic, Work is a Disease – Karl Marx, 2004 (1979) USE-VALUE, VALUE AND EXCHANGE VALUE The worth of a commodity can be conceived of in two different ways, which Marx calls use-value and value. A commodity's use-value is its usefulness for fulfilling some practical purpose; for example, the use-value of a piece of food is that it provides nourishment and pleasurable taste; the use value of a hammer, that it can drive nails. Value is, on the other hand, a measure of a commodity's worth in comparison to other commodities. It is closely related to exchange- value, the ratio at which commodities should be traded for one another, but not identical: value is at a more general level of abstraction; exchange-value is a realisation or form of it. HUMAN LABOUR Marx argued that if value is a property common to all commodities, then whatever it is derived from, whatever determines it, must be common to all commodities. The only relevant thing common to all commodities is human labour: they are all produced by human labour. Marx concluded that the value of a commodity is simply the amount of human labour required to produce it. Means of production The subjects of labour and instruments of labour together

Relations of production are the relations human beings adopt toward each other as part of the production process.

Wage labour and private property are part of the relations of production. Calculation of value of a product (price not to be confused with value): If labour is performed directly on Nature and with instruments of negligible value, the value of the product is simply the labour time. If labour is performed on something that is itself the product of previous labour (that is, on a raw material), using instruments that have some value, the value of the product is the value of the raw material, plus depreciation on the instruments, plus the labour time. LOUIS ALTHUSSER, ON THE REPRODUCTION OF CAPITALISM

1) Every concrete social formation is based on a dominant mode of production. The immediate implication is that, in every social formation, there exists more than one mode of production: at least two and often many more. One of the modes of production in this set is described as dominant, the others as dominated. 2. What constitutes a mode of production? It is the unity between what Marx calls the productive forces and the relations of production. Thus every mode of production, dominant or dominated, has, in its unity, its productive forces and relations of production. The ‘correspondence’ between the productive forces and relations of production. 3. When we consider a mode of production in the unity productive forces/relations of production that constitutes it, it appears that this unity has a material basis: the productive forces. But these productive forces are nothing at all if they are not rendered operational, and they can only operate in and under the aegis of their relations of production. This leads to the conclusion that, on the basis of the existing productive forces and within the limits they set, the relations of production play the determinant role. the necessity of renewing the means of production to make production possible- the ultimate condition for production is the reproduction of the conditions of production. Starting from the assumption that every social formation is characterized by a dominant mode of production, we may say - that the process of production puts the existing productive forces to work under determinate relations of production. It follows that, in order to exist, every social formation must, while it produces, and in order to be able to produce, reproduce the conditions of its production. It must therefore reproduce

1) the productive forces; 2) the existing relations of production. no production is possible unless it ensures reproduction of the material conditions of production in strictly regulated proportions: reproduction of the means of production. The average economist is, in this respect, no different from the average capitalist. He will tell you that, every year, it is necessary to make provisions to replace what is used up or wears out in production: raw materials, fixed facilities (buildings), instruments of production (machines), and so on. We say the average economist = the average capitalist, because both express the viewpoint of the enterprise; they content themselves with simply commenting on the terms of its financial accounting practice. Targets

 hierarchy  work vs. art  authorship/expertise  individual/collective  authority  centralised decision making Praxis School

The Praxis school was a Marxist humanist philosophical movement. It originated in Zagreb and Belgrade in the SFR Yugoslavia, during the 1960s. Prominent figures among the school's founders include Gajo Petrović and Milan Kangrga of Zagreb and Mihailo Marković of Belgrade. From 1964 to 1974 they published the Marxist journal Praxis, which was renowned as one of the leading international journals in Marxist theory. The group also organized the widely popular Korčula Summer School in the island of Korčula. Basic tenets Due to the tumultuous sociopolitical conditions in the 1960s, the affirmation of 'authentic' Marxist theory and praxis, and its humanist and dialectical aspects in particular, was an urgent task for philosophers working across the SFRY. There was a need to respond to the kind of modified Marxism- Leninism enforced by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (see Titoism). To vocalize and therefore begin to satisfy this need, the program of Praxis school was defined in French in the first issue of the International edition of Praxis: A quoi bon Praxis. Predrag Vranicki (On the problem of Practice) and Danko Grlić (Practice and Dogma) expanded this program in English in the same issue (Praxis, 1965, 1, p. 41-48 and p. 49-58). The Praxis philosophers considered Leninism and Stalinism to be apologetic due to their ad hoc nature. Leninist and Stalinist theories were considered to be unfaithful to the Marxist theory, as they were adjusted according to the needs of the party elite and intolerant of ideological criticism. The defining features of the school were: 1) emphasis on the writings of the young Marx; and 2) call for freedom of speech in both East and West based upon Marx's insistence on ruthless social critique. As Erich Fromm has argued in his preface to Marković's work From Affluence to Praxis, the theory of the Praxis theoreticians was to "return to the real Marx as against the Marx equally distorted by right wing social democrats and Stalinists". Different theorists emphasized different aspects of the theory. Where Mihailo Marković writes of alienation and the dynamic nature of human beings, Petrović writes of philosophy as radical critique of all existing things, emphasizing the essentially creative and practical nature of human beings. Milan Kangrga emphasizes creativity as well, but also the understanding of human beings as producers humanizing nature. Mladen Stilinovic Born in 1947 in Belgrade (Yugoslavia). Member of an informal group "Six Authors", which had a significant impact on the development of radical Croatian art in the second half of the seventies. From 1982 heading the Galerija Prosirenih medija. Lives in Zagreb (Croatia). Artist at Work, 1978 Artist at Work, 1978

THE PRAISE OF LAZINESS - MLADEN STILINOVIC As an artist, I learned from both East (socialism) and West (capitalism). Of course, now when the borders and political systems have changed, such an experience will be no longer possible. But what I have learned from that dialogue, stays with me. My observation and knowledge of Western art has lately led me to a conclusion that art cannot exist... any more in the West. This is not to say that there isn't any. Why cannot art exist any more in the West? The answer is simple. Artists in the West are not lazy. Artists from the East are lazy; whether they will stay lazy now when they are no longer Eastern artists, remains to be seen. Laziness is the absence of movement and thought, dumb time - total amnesia. It is also indifference, staring at nothing, non- activity, impotence. It is sheer stupidity, a time of pain, futile concentration. Those virtues of laziness are important factors in art. Knowing about laziness is not enough, it must be practised and perfected. Artists in the West are not lazy and therefore not artists but rather producers of something... Their involvement with matters of no importance, such as production, promotion, gallery system, museum system, competition system (who is first), their preoccupation with objects, all that drives them away from laziness, from art. Just as money is paper, so a gallery is a room. Malevich wrote a text entitled "Laziness - the real truth of mankind" (1921). In it he criticized capitalism because it enabled only a small number of capitalists to be lazy, but also socialism because the entire movement was based on work instead of laziness. To quote: "People are scared of laziness and persecute those who accept it, and it always happens because no one realizes laziness is the truth; it has been branded as the mother of all vices, but it is in fact the mother of life. Socialism brings liberation in the unconscious, it scorns laziness without realizing it was laziness that gave birth to it; in his folly, the son scorns his mother as a mother of all vices and would not remove the brand; in this brief note I want to remove the brand of shame from laziness and to pronounce it not the mother of all vices, but the mother of perfection". Finally, to be lazy and conclude: there is no art without laziness.

Work is a desease - Karl Marx. Work is a shame - Vlado Martek. © 1998 - Mladen Stilinovic / Moscow Art Magazine N°22

KONST. "Whatever happened to social democracy?"

The Exploitation of the Dead, 1984/1990

ZELJKO JERMAN, “This is not my world” photo documentation of the public action, 15 x 10 cm, 1976 COLECTIVE ACTION-Russia

Earth – Croatia Mediala - Serbia Hlebine - Croatia Exat 51 - Croatia Gorgona - Croatia Six Artists Group - Croatia Red Peristyle – Croatia (Split) OHO - Slovenia IRWIN - Slovenia Janez Jansa - Slovenia ArtLeaks Int. Bell (Zvono); Trio – Bosnia, Sarajevo Today (Denes) – Skopje, Macedonia ZERO - Macedonia Skart - Serbia SubREAL – Romania Collective Actions (Andrei Monastyrsky, Nikolai Pantikov, Igor Makarevich, Elena Elagina, Sergei Romashko, and Sabina Hensgen; Nikita Alexeev and Georgy Kizevalter left in 1983) began its work in 1976 and has continued it to the present day. They have realized 124 actions and collected 10 volumes of the Trips out of Town books, which are comprised of texts describing the actions, accounts by the actions’ participants, and theoretical articles about the contemporary aesthetic the group continues to develop. Each volume also features photographs and various documentary materials from the actions (maps, supplementary material, drawings, and so on). In 1977, the second year of the group’s work, Flash Art International published a feature about CA’s actions and ran a photograph of one action on the cover and documentation of CA was presented at the Venice Biennale. CA’s work in the 1970s and 1980s was acclaimed in both Russian conceptualist circles and the West as work at the forefront of the discourse of contemporary art as art “after philosophy.” As aesthetic space-time events, CA’s actions have unfolded in both huge rural spaces (fields, forests, rivers, and so on) and in the considerable discourse of texts introducing, accompanying, and commenting on action events (i.e. in the Trips out of Town books). However, actions have sometimes been held in both urban and closed space when this was called for by the process of developing a contemporary aesthetic language, social particularities in terms of historical development “here and now,” or the various twists and turns of the collective existential discourse of emerging stages of an aesthetic era. —Andrei Monastyrsky, 2010 The category of “emptiness,” which is central for Moscow Conceptualism, is comparable in many regards to Bataille’s “formless.” Both of these terms name operations or procedures that open up new non-authoritative positions for writing, philosophizing or art making, regardless of how paradoxical or absurd their results may appear. “Emptiness” appears in Monastyrsky’s Dictionary not only as an independent entry but also as a method, or rather as a lack of method (an “empty method,” to paraphrase one of KD’s key concepts), fully justifying the “incomplete” and “partial” character of lexicographical reference within the Dictionary, often to the point of frustrating academic inquiry. Unlike the Critical Dictionary, in which Bataille provides the entries with theorizations of their method and extensive explanations, the conceptualists’ Dictionary – like the Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme – more resembles an index, or a search algorithm that helps re-direct the reader to other sources and names. Despite its differences from the Critical Dictionary, its main function is very close to what Bataille defines as the main job of a dictionary: it would begin “as of the moment when it no longer provided the meaning of words but their tasks.” The Earth Group (Grupa Zemlja) were Croatian artists, architects and intellectuals active in Zagreb from 1929 to 1935. The group was Marxist in orientation and was partly modelled on Neue Sachlichkeit leading to more stylized forms, and the emergence of Naive painting. The group included the painters Krsto Hegedušić, Edo Kovačević, Omer Mujadžić, Kamilo Ružička, Ivan Tabaković, and Oton Postružnik, the sculptors Antun Augustinčić, Frano Kršinić, and the architect Drago Ibler. The Earth group searched for answers to social issues. Their program emphasised the importance of independent creative expression, and opposed the uncritical copying of foreign styles. Rather than producing art for art's sake, they felt it ought to reflect the reality of life and the needs of the modern community. Activities at the group's exhibitions were increasingly provocative to the government of the day, and in 1935 the group was banned. Manifesto of group Today-Macedonia, 1954

Third Congress of Artists of Yugoslavia, 1953

На ликовното поле слободата на личниот израз, како и борбата на различни струења стана и станува основен раздвижувач за создавање на општојугословенска уметност. Оваа констатација беше усвоена и на Третиот конгрес на Сојузот на ликовните уметници на Југославија во мај 1953 година во Охрид и беше внесена во заклучоците како препорака до сите ликовни работници од нашата земја за формирање на групи ликовни уметници со приближно еднакви естетски погледи. Всушност, Третиот конгрес го потврди она што во практиката веќе постоеше во поразвиените ликовни центри (Белград, Загреб и Љубљана), а што во перспектива треба и секако ќе стане и во останатите ликовни центри од нашата земја. Mediala

The group Mediala was founded in 1953 in Belgrade. The name is a neologism (by Miro Glavurtić) consisting of the words med (honey) and ala (female mythological creature recorded in the folklore of Bulgarians and Serbs). They defined honey as a kind of elixir, which can be artificially synthesized. Ala is a dymbol of darkness, conflict and destruction.

The group focused on gestural actions close to Neo-Dada and Fluxus. However, they claimed to be neither modern nor post- modern and merged traditional values with modern trends; a blend of classic and modern elements. Their aim was a modernization of both spiritual and practical life. The two most-known artists of the group were Leonid Šejka and Vladan Radovanović. Leonid Šejka (1932–1970) was Serbian painter and architect.

Šejka was one of the founders of “Baltasar group”, that turned into “Mediala” in November 1957. He was a sculptor, he made objects, book illustrations, stage design, he was involved in art theory, but he also made experiments in the field of non- pictorial. Aside of a number of articles he published in different magazines, he also published “Treaty on art” for which he was awarded with Nolit prize.

Mediala. Šejka is now regarded as one of Yugoslavia's most original painters who tried to achieve a new objectivity - neither modern nor post-modern - by depicting the contingent object world in a magical space bounded by 'City', the 'Junk Yards', and the 'Castle'. Leonid Šejka:

Multiplication, 1956  Nancy’s concept of being is always already being with. According to him being always entails “with” as an inevitable conjunction that links different singularities.

 Nancy, Being Singular Plural 13, 29, 94.  Here Nancy reminds us that the aporia of the “we” is actually the main aporia of intersubjectivity and he points out the impossibility to pin down some universal “we” that consists of always the same components. [ii]

 Nancy, Being Singular Plural 75.  Nancy is a philosopher of coessentiality of being-with because he does not believe in any philosophical solipsism and in any ‘philosophy of the subject in the sense of the final [infinite] closure in itself of a for- itself.’

 He goes as far as saying that ‘there is no “self” except by virtue of a “with,” which, in fact, structures it.’  When Nancy claims that the sharing of the world is co-implication of existence he refers to the problem that at this moment we cannot truly say “we,” that we forgot the importance of being-together, being-in-common and belonging and that we live without relations. In order to attain this knowledge and the praxis of “we” according to Nancy it is important to understand that “we” is not a subject in terms of self-identification, neither is that “we” composed of subjects. [i]

 Nancy, Being Singular Plural 75. Similarly to Nancy, Giorgio Agamben thinks of being-in-common as distinct from community. In fact, the most frightening community for the State, according to him, is the one that rejects all identity and every condition of belonging, that is based on whatever singularity which wants not to belong but to appropriate the belonging itself. [i]

 Agamben, The Coming Community 86, 87.  ‘what the State cannot tolerate in any way, however, is that the singularities form a community without affirming an identity, that humans co-belong without any representable condition of belonging (even in the form of a simple presupposition.’ [ii]

 Agamben, The Coming Community 87. Communitarianism

 A model of political organisation that stresses ties of affection, kinship, and a sense of common purpose and tradition, as opposed to the meagre morality of contractual ties entered into between a loose conglomeration of individuals.  The contrast was originally offered by the German sociologist F. Tönnies (1855- 1936) Community and Association, 1955, and Community and Society, 1957.

 Based on the idea of common good but opposes gay marriage, abortion, etc. Community art

 also known as "dialogical art" or "community-based art," is an art form based in a community setting. Works from this genre can be of any art forms and is characterised by interaction or dialogue with the community.

 The term was defined in the late-1960s.

 Often community art is based in deprived areas, with a community oriented, grassroots approach.  Members of a local community will come together to express concerns or issues through an artistic process, sometimes this may involve professional artists or actors. These communal artistic processes act as a catalyst to trigger events or changes within a community or even at a national or international level.  In English-speaking countries community art is often seen as the work of community arts centre. Visual arts (fine art, video, new media art), music, and theatre are common mediums in community art centers. Many arts companies in the UK do some community- based work, which typically involves developing participation by non- professional members of local communities. Community art and public art

 The term community art refers also to field of community, neighbourhood and public art practice with roots in social justice and popular and informal education methods.

 In the art world, community art signifies a particular art making practice, emphasizing community involvement and collaboration. Community art is most often art for social change and involves some empowerment of the community members who come together to create artwork/s with artists. Stephen Willats

 His multi-media projects often engage visitors to participate in creative social processes. Notable projects include Multiple Clothing (1965-1998), The West London Social Resource Project (1972), and the book Art and Social Function: Three Projects (1976).

 Willats considers Art and Social Function as a "kind of manual or tool that would be relevant to any artist thinking of enacting different paradigms for an art intervening in the fabric of society".  His 1973 work Meta Filter consisted of pairs of participants seated at a computer, attempting to reach an agreement about the meanings of various images and statements.[2] Hlebine School

The Hlebine School is the term applied to a group of naive painters working in or around the village of Hlebine, near the Hungarian border, from about 1930. The school developed from the encouragement given by Krsto Hegedušić to the young painter Ivan Generalić, whom he met in 1930. Generalić and his friends Franjo Mraz (also a native of Hlebine) and Mirko Virius (from the nearby village of Đelekovec) formed the nucleus of the group. In 1931, they were invited to exhibit with the Earth group, which brought public recognition and naive art became a popular form of artistic expression in Croatia, making a strong social statement about the harshness of rural life. Generalić was the first master of the Hlebine School, and the first to develop a distinctive personal style, achieving a high standard in his art. Ivan Generalic, Woodcutters 1959, 710x1210 mm Ulje, staklo / Oil, glass Ivan Večenaj: Evangelists on Calvary, 1966 EXAT 51 (the name stands for Experimental Atelier) was a group of artists and architects (1951–56) whose program was geometric abstraction in painting, new ways of handling of space in architecture, and the abolition of the distinction between fine and applied arts. Their ideas owed much to the Russian Constructivist avant-garde and the German Bauhaus experience, and Exat wanted to involve artists in the shaping of the environment with an experimental and creative approach. Members of the group included architects Bernardo Bernardi, Zdravko Bregovac, Zvonimir Radić, Božidar Rašica, Vjenceslav Richter Vladimir Zarahović, and painters Vlado Kristl, Ivan Picelj, Božidar Rašica, and Aleksandar Srnec Exat's first manifesto in 1951 was fiercely attacked by the traditional art establishment. However, an exhibit of paintings by the group in 1952 in Zagreb was well attended, and in that same year, they participated in the VII Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris. In 1953, an exhibition of paintings was held in the Society of Croatian Architects and there the group issued a second manifesto in response to their critics. Other exhibits followed in Belgrade (1953), Rijeka (1954,1956), Dubrovnik (1956) and finally in Belgrade (1956 The Gorgona Group – anti-art group (named after the mythological creature of Gorgon), was a Croatian avant-garde art group which consisted of 8 members, artists and art historians: Dimitrije Bašičević-Mangelos, Miljenko Horvat, Marijan Jevšovar, Julije Knifer, Ivan Kožarić, Matko Meštrović, Radoslav Putar, Đuro Seder, Josip Vaništa, operated along the lines of anti-art in Zagreb between 1959 and 1966. Beside individual works linked to traditional techniques, the members proposed different concepts and forms of artistic communication, ran a gallery and published the anti- magazine Gorgona. Works by the Gorgona Group are widely represented in a number of institutions in Croatia including, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, the Filip Trade Collection and the Sudac Collection.

Exhibitions and participations of the group (selection): 1977 "Gorgona", Gallery of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; Municipal Museum, Mönchengladbach; Gallery ·KUC, Belgrade. 1981 Biennial of São Paulo. 1986 Gallery ·KUC, Belgrade. 1989 "Gorgona", FRAC Bourgogne, Art Plus University, Dijon. 1993 "The Horse who Sings - Radical Art from Croatia", Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. 1997 "Gorgona, Gorgonesco, Gorgonico", Biennial of Venice Gorgona Group, 1966, Zagreb Gorgona members at Julije Knifer’s exhibition - the Gallery of Contemporary Art

•Their interest in existentialism and Neo- Dadaism, and also in Reductionism and Zen philosophy, resulted in activities that surpassed the boundaries of the period’s artistic media. •The anti-magazine Gorgona was one such breakthrough. Simply and unobtrusively designed, with works dictated by the form of the magazine, Gorgona contained information about artworks that was primary and not secondary. Each number contained the work of only one artist and was itself a work of art realized in the print medium. By repeating the same photo of an empty shop window, Josip Vaništa emphasized plainness, monotony and irony in relation to expected reception. On a single page of the magazine, he printed a reproduction of the Mona Lisa (No. 6, 1961), thus raising a critical and analytical question regarding the meaning of reproducing a work of art. Gorgona’s invigorating creative search was injected with a good dose of tongue-in-cheek humor stemming from Dada and Surrealism. In fact, Gorgona anticipated some aspects of conceptual art that were later developed by artists internationally. One example is the “artist’s book,” a form that dates earlier, to be sure, but the notion of the book as a printed multiple and a likewise a “work of art” was a novelty. Dieter Roth’s 2 Bilderbücher (1957) and Ed Ruscha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1962) are seen as pioneering book works, but Gorgona’s “anti-magazine” publications are little acknowledged for being a forerunner of the genre as well. Questioning and contesting conventions of art and art making, Gorgona cultivated an ongoing poetic exchange among its members, and, from 1961 to 1966, they published eleven (and prepared two more) editions of that “anti-magazine” which was called simply Gorgona. Some issues were conceived in collaboration with international artists among whom Dieter Roth and Piero Manzoni were closest to the ideas of the group (though Manzoni’s issue remained unpublished). In 1962 in Zagreb Josip Vaništa, the head of Gorgona Group, sent an invitation to fifty addresses culled from the address book of Studio G. The invitation read as follows: »You are kindly invited to attend« without saying where or why they were invited. The invitation card mentioned practically nothing specific, only this text, a simple thought: invitation to Nothing.

The work speaks of absence and silence. »As long as a human eye is looking, there is always something to see. To look at something which is ‘empty’ is still to be looking, still to be seeing something – if only the ghosts of one’s own expectations. In order to perceive fullness, one must retain an acute sense of the emptiness which marks it off…« Silence, as Susan Sontag says in her famous essay »Aesthetics of Silence«, is only one element in a work of art.

Mangelos, a member of the Group Gorgona which was active in Zagreb in the 1960s, and the works by the generation of Conceptual and Postconceptual artists: Goran Trbuljak, Dalibor Martinis, Mladen Stilinovic, Vlado Martek, and Boris Cvjetanovic. For their occasional public activity they used the ‘Studio G’ space (the art framing shop Salon Schira, Preradoviceva 13, Zagreb). Josip Vaništa, the founder of the group, initiated the publication of the anti-journal Gorgona (11 issues published from 1961 until 1966). Unlike the usual informative journals, it was intended as series of separate art projects of members and non-members alike (like Dieter Rot or Victor Vasarely). The radical and subversive nature of the group has manifested itself in the area of culture that attempted to finish off the artistic procedure, the art object and space of art as such. In the society at large it meant trying to ignore the existing power system. The propensity for secrecy, privacy and isolation, had mocked the spirit of the dominant ideology of socialist collectivism. Their penchant for plainness, darkness and nihilism, their programmatic optimism, together with elaborate written memoranda and elements of ritual behaviour, combined to mock the bureaucratic essence of society and the cult of a leader. Unlike other avant-garde movements, Gorgona did not have a prescribed program or platform. Opposed to the centralized social- political system, it only offered solid support for the varied personal poetics of its individual members. 1968 In June 1968 students protests broke out at the University in Belgrade, which became the epicentre for protests all over the country (Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo). It alle begann with an (escalated) brawl between students and security forces in Novi Beograd. One the next day thousends of students gathered and protested, but were stopped by police forces, which used firearms to stop the demonstration. The students occupied the University in Belgrade and renamed it into "Red University Karl Marx" (a reference to the occupation of the University in Frankfurt, Germany The students' paroles were "Abolition of all privileges, democratisation of the media, freedom of assembly and demonstrations." The call for "freedom, justice and self.determination" is similar to other students protests in 1968 (e.g. Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland). However, the Yugoslavian students already lived on a socialist society and could express their claims in accordance to the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. What they criticised was the contradiction between theory and practice. President Josip Broz Tito gradually stopped the protests. In a televised speech he said that "the students are right". But in the following years, he dealt with the leaders of the protest by sacking them from university and Communist party posts. According to Bora Ćosić the situation for artists got worse after the protests (in the 1970s). Belgrade is the world, image on: www.mgb.org.rs Biafra Group Biafra (1970–1978) was a group of Croatian artists that rebelled against the artistic, social and cultural conventions of the day, and engaged with real problems through their art. Individual members ranged in style from pop-art and minimalism to new figuration.The sculptors of the group used new materials in their work, such as polyester, plastic, jute, aluminum, and glass wool, while the painters engaged with imaginative, expressive, rich colors. The content of their art was expressionist, clear and direct. Exhibitions and activities were organized on the streets, presenting their ideas directly to the public. The group originally consisted of the young sculptors Branko Bunić, Stjepan Gračan, Ratko Petrić and Miro Vuco. Membership expanded over the years to include Ivan Lesiak, Zlatko Kauzlarić Atač, Rudolf Labaš, Vlado Jakelić, Stanko Jančić, Ratko Janjić- Jobo, Đurđica Zanoški-Gudlin, Emil Robert Tanay In the late 1970s (1975-1981), the 'Group of Six Artists' (Boris Demur, Željko Jerman, Vlado Martek, Mladen Stilinović, Sven Stilinović and Fedor Vučemilović) began exhibiting in open air spaces in an attempt to circumvent the traps set by art institutions. The young artists displayed their work on sunbathing boards and on the grass between the bathers on the bank of the river Sava (in Zagreb), they projected slides and films on to buildings, exhibited on city squares, in the streets, in universities in Zagreb, on the sea shore of Moščenička Draga, in Belgrade, Venice and elsewhere. Exhibition-Action, Group of Six Artists,1975 the Public Baths on the River Sava, Zagreb Exhibition-Action, 1976 Group of Six Artists, Strolling through Zagreb They called their shows “exhibition-actions” because, alongside some finished works, most of the work and actions were created on site and in response to the situation. They acted spontaneously, as a loose association of artists who expressed their ideas in works that often challenged the established ethic and aesthetic order and sought to subvert the society in which they lived. The Group’s exhibition-actions usually lasted a day and employed the guerilla tactics of constant harassment. These were permanent "mini" revolts, protests suffused with a critical spirit and imagination which was at once mocking and joyful. To change life, to change art, never to submit to the rules and demands of the system nor to the inherited traditions of art - this, in short, was the romantic aspiration of them all. Each of the artists looked for an area where he could act freely and push forward the limits of the possible. They each abandoned or broke with some form of practice. They were not interested in the work of art as a final product, they presented their ideas in expendable materials, with the stress on the working process. They were confidently provocative, drawing on the experience of Fluxus and Conceptual Art. The emphasis of their work was on tautology as the heritage of Conceptualism, the analysis of the medium, and the self referentiality of the work. The work often referred to the status of both the artist and his work. The exhibition-actions involved communicating with the audience. What mattered was the event, the get- together. Source: Branka Stipančić, "Some Aspects of Croatian Contemporary Art 1949-1999" Crveni Peristil (Red Peristyle)

was an urban intervention in Diocletian's Palace in the city of Split, performed on January 11, 1968, when its peristyle (main court) was painted red. The group that created this urban intervention was formed in 1966.

"The intervention with red color on the sidewalk of the antique Peristyle (Chromatic shaping of the ambience of the Peristyle) in Diocletian’s Palace , Split on 1/10/1968, included students from the Teachers’ Academy and pupils from the Applied Arts School in Split, Pavle Dulčić, Toma Čaleta, Vladimir Dodig Trokut, Slaven Sumić, Nenad Ðapić, Radovan Kogej, Srđan Blažević and Denis Dokić. The action was colloquially named Red Peristyle. It gained the status of domestic urban legend. And of a footnote to the world’s contemporary art compendiums as some art historians consider this action as one of the pioneering in the realm of conceptual art. The participants were arrested and fined the next day on the grounds of the defilement of a historical monument and public space. The reasons as to what has prompted the action widely differ. According to Vladimir Dodig Trokut, the coloring of the 12 squares, 12 meters for 12 participants, was based on the wholesome system of didactic education and grounding in the art history coming from the professor Boze Jelinic, who was the spiritual leader of the group. The members have informally met since 1966, taking part in the alternative film practices as members of the Kino Club Split. Pavle Dulčić developed his own concept of Informel painting and Constructivist, cybernetic projects. Toma Čaleta and Trokut were active from the radical political position, inspired by the entire political events in Europe of the time, and the Marxist philosophical group Praxis (active in former Yugoslavia in the 60’s). The initial color ideas included orange (revolutionary color of the West); the anarchist combination of red and black and, finally, red that used as a symbolic attack on the existing political (communist) system. Sumic, later, stated that they even considered the red and white combination, but gave up on it because the obvious Croatian national symbolism would have likely meant the long-term jail sentence." The group had a destructive approach similar to post-urban Duchamp art of the 1960s. A number of other actions were recognized as the work of the same artistic group (Red Peristyle).

This illegal attack on public property was made more controversial by the choice of the color. It was seen as an act of provocation towards communism in the former Yugoslavia. It was also seen as vandalism and was prosecuted by the authorities. Only one art historian, Cvito Fisković made a statement of defense.

Two of the protagonists, Pave Dulčić and Tomo Ćaleta, committed suicide, whereas others (notably two more) did not speak about the event. A myth of the Red Peristyle evolved and created a group of new "anti-heroes". OHO GROUP 1966-1971, Slovenia / Yugoslavia –

Members: Marjan Ciglic, Drago Dellabernardina, Sreco Dragan, Iztok, Geister (I.G. Plamen), Matjaz Hanzek, Ales Kermavner, Vojin Kovac - Chubby, Nasko Kriznar, Milenko Matanovic, David Nez, Marko Pogacnik, Andraz Salamun, Tomaz Salamun, Franci Zagoricnik OHO Group: Mount Triglav, 1968 The OHO Group worked in Kranj and in Ljubljana between 1965 and 1971 on the field of Reism, Process Art and Conceptual Art. It was the first 'radical - urban - ideological' artistic appearance in Slovene modern arts. Its function wasn't only an experiment in the autonomous field of arts, but also the provocative gesture of neo-avant- garde artists in the sense of 1968 protests which stirred up the arrangement of arts, culture and society. 3 x TRIGLAV: CONTROVERSIES and PROBLEMS regarding MOUNT TRIGLAV

After 1968 a certain provocative controversy is at work in contemporary Slovene arts. This experimental, retro-avant-garde and artivistic artistic-political controversy seemingly refers to the famed happening of the group OHO (Milenko Matanovic, David Nez, Drago Dellabernardina) Mount Triglav, which took place on 30 December 1968 in Ljubljana's Zvezda (Star) Park, and on the recycling or reconstructions of that happening which were made first by the group Irwin (Andrej Savski, Borut Vogelnik, Roman Uranjek) Svoji k svojim/Gora Triglav (Like to Like/Mount Triglav) in 2004 in Zvezda Park, and later, by the artists Janez Janša, Janez Janša and Janez Janša - Triglav na Triglavu (Mount Triglav on Mount Triglav) on 6 August 2007 on Slovenia's Mount Triglav. In the frame of an experimental artistic situation the three performances only seemingly metaphorize the geographic, national and state symbol of Slovenia: Mount Triglav. All of the works are the most radical executions of the politically sliding sign, that is, individual explanations of symptoms of Slovene identity and, more importantly, the historical construction and realization of political identities. Preliminary Problem 1: Tragedy and Grotesque Marx's well-known and without a doubt cynical dictum, which we've heard countless times and asserts that history occurs twice, first as a tragedy, second as a farce, misses or conceals a certain important point: that 'repetition of history' is never simply 'repetition', but is always an authentic event which has 'new' consequences. The occurrence of repetitions is carried out under different material conditions and in different circumstances. The carrying out of the 'same' or at least a 'similar' event in different measures and circumstances, produces different results. This point is necessary to consider when we observe, or rather, refer to or discuss the three 'Triglavs' in Slovene arts - the Mount Triglavs of 1968, 2004, and 2007 respectively.

Preliminary Problem 2: Organism, individuum, subject An organism is a functional and articulated relation of different organs. An individuum is an organism with an identifying 'social number' (personal ID number, tax number, social insurance number, voter registration number, resident registration number). A subject is the manifoldness of textual, audiovisual or behavioural manifestations which represent, show and describe a certain individuum and organism in culture and society. From its inception, the OHO product, that is the 'article' and then the 'happening', was to carry out the concept of event as a visual metaphor which OHO members demonstrated in projects, such as Mount Triglav. The purpose of the 'visual metaphor' primarily boasts itself as a problem of the referential relation of visual appearances and the material or fictional world within them. The visual metaphor is a visual phenomenon which is erected in place of some other visual statement or discursive structure. OHO's concept of the object (article) or event (happening) was founded on the relation of object/happening and word. The work Mount Triglav, which was carried out as a happening, demonstrates the function of visual metaphor: three authors draped by a cloth from which their long-haired hippie heads looked out at three different heights. The title of the work (displayed in front of them) hinted towards Mount Triglav, that is, on the scheme: tri (three) + glave (heads) = tri glave (three heads). It established the following relational references. The position of the artists' bodies and cloth iconographically hints towards a mountain, that is, visualized was an iconographically oriented metaphor of a mountain. The Slovene mountain Triglav was metaphorically called such because of its three peaks which look like three human heads. The artistic work, which models a mountain, showed the relationship between 'mountain as material' and 'name as label'. Three real human hippie heads were similar to the three peaks of the mountain. The referential relationship between the title of the work Mount Triglav and the artistic work is repeatedly mimetic. This mimeticness has itself in social-realistic society political consequences, but shows that there are 'ideal' and 'universally established' symbols of work and socialist Slovene nation can also be established as an object of intervention of young rebels without a cause. Happening of the group OHO (Milenko Matanovic, David Nez, Drago Dellabernardina) Mount Triglav, which took place on 30 December 1968 in Ljubljana's Zvezda (Star) Park, Irwin group (NSK): Like to Like/Mount Triglav, 2004

Zvono Bell, Biljana Gavranović, Sadko Hadžihasanović, Sejo Čizmić, Narcis Kantardžić, Aleksandar Saša Bukvić, Kemal Hadžić, Sport and Art, 1986 The question of the relation between art, artist and society, being it a relation of complicity or conflict, opposition or even subversion, always assumes a certain paradoxical notion: that art somehow operates outside, above or beyond society. As subversive artists are perceived the ones who do not comply with the existing societal, political and cultural mainstream . It sounds as if we haven’t overcome the notion of artists as some kind of lunatics or outcasts who on the one hand are allowed and capable of existing beyond or despite any societal rules, or, on the other hand, are some kind of martyrs who suffer not being understood by the very society in which they create. In order to clarify the phenomenon of abjection from the political, I need to unearth where this political abject from the beginning of my text comes from. To do so I will need to go back in time in the 80s of 20th century and to refer to now non-existing cultural and political geography of ex- Yugoslavia. the original theoretical context of the term abject - Julija Kristeva’s book The Powers of Horror the abject has religious roots and it is mainly about the primal repression and transgression: ‘Discomfort, unease, dizziness, stemming from an ambiguity that through the violence of a revolt against, demarcates a space out of which signs and objects arise.’ However, according to Kristeva the effects of the abjection lead to the constitution of one’s own culture: The abject is the border, not me, not that…not nothing either. A something that cannot be recognised as thing, A weight of meaningless, on the edge of non-existence and hallucination, of reality that if I acknowledge it annihilates me, There abject and abjection are my safeguards, The primers of my culture.

Julia Kristeva. Powers of Horror- An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press. 1982, p. 10 Ibid., p.2 The political abject in ex-communist countries was definitely the primer of one’s own culture – for the ones feeling the discomfort from the political culture was the only alternative so these two were not to be mixed. Similarly as with any of the food mixing taboos that Kristeva speaks about if the mixture between politics and culture would have taken place the loathing was the only final result. The second possibility was preserved for the most courageous. One could belong to one of at first clandestine but very soon openly publicised nationalist movements. The nationalists were already publicly visible and audible in the 80s but their activities were not legalised. Very soon in the late 90s the different nationalist oppositions in the different republics incited the split of Yugoslavia and the ethnic conflicts resulting with most horrible local wars. These two different positions were not isolated from each other, though. One could be a member of the communist party and yet be a nationalist, or boast with apolitical past and still be a secret member of the party. In fact the latter was the most ambivalent position available - being a communist party member but remaining non-active in public, belonging without belonging. Being after the easy access to power (guaranteed were not only small privileges but the membership was required for any university or managerial position) and yet criticising it was a kind of simulated opposition and it was seen as the worst hypocrisy. In this context I want to evoke the case of the most renowned intellectual from ex-Yugoslavia – the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek who underwent through similar political context in the early stage of his career (and whose name is linked with the activities of NSK and Laibach, the music group part of NSK). In 1976 he published his book Sign, Signifier, Letter both in Slovenian and Croatian and with this book started the first serious reception of the psychoanalysis in Yugoslavia but from this book it was almost impossible to anticipate the political application of psychoanalysis of Žižek later texts. The book deals with a very complex reading of Lacan linking psychoanalysis and the Boromean knots and entanglements between the order of the real, imaginary and symbolic with contemporary philosophical interpretations of Hegel and Kant. It was not until late eighties and early nineties when Žižek started writing his famous essays on film. He then first embarked on his cultural crusade instead on a completely philosophical discourse. Interestingly enough at the very same time in 1990 he was an officially nominated candidate for a President of Republic Slovenia of the Liberal Democratic Party. The famous essay Why are Laibach and NSK not Fascists?’ that Žižek wrote in 1993 about Slovenian music group Laibach and the phenomenon of the artists’ collective NSK was the first text that tried to explain the NSK phenomenon. The famous essay Why are Laibach and NSK not Fascists?’ that Žižek wrote in 1993 about Slovenian music group Laibach and the phenomenon of the artists’ collective NSK was the first text that tried to explain the NSK phenomenon which started in 1984 when three groups that were established in 1983 (the music band Laibach, the art five member collective IRWIN and the theatre Gledališce Sestre Scipion Nasice) gathered under the same name NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst). Was is NMK NSK (1980s-1990s) Mizar, Vermilion Deviet, Arhangel, Telo nauka sovrsena, Laibah Kismet Lola V. Stain, Anastasija Novi kolektivizam A1, Proto- Zelena NSK Sestre ta Scipion Zero, Zero, State Venko guska, Irwin Nasice Cvetkov Apore Krst nad a, Triglavom Zlatko Trajkovski, Zaneta Vangeli

What most deeply "holds together" a community is not so much identification with the Law that regulates the community's "normal" everyday circuit, but rather identification with a specific form of transgression of the Law, of the Law's suspension (in psychoanalytic terms, with a specific form of enjoyment).

Slavoj Žižek. “Why ar Laibach and NSK not Fascists?” Originally published in M'ARS (Ljubljana: Moderna Galerija), vol. 3/4.http://www.nskstate.com/appendix/articles/whyarelaibach.php

Zizek gives as an example the enjoyment of Ku Klux Klan’s members’ secret enjoyment of torturing their black victims. I want to suggest here that a similar enjoyment was shared in ex-Yugoslavia among intellectuals and artists not accepting to get involved in the political life, ‘solidarity-in-guilt adduced by participation in a common transgression’ of the communist rules. This uneasy feeling was fed on the assumption that ironic distance is automatically a subversive attitude. What if, on the contrary, the dominant attitude of the contemporary "postideological" universe is precisely the cynical distance toward public values? What if this distance, far from posing any threat to the system, designates the supreme form of conformism, since the normal function of the system requires cynical distance? In this sense the strategy of Laibach appears in a new light: it "frustrates" the system (the ruling ideology) precisely insofar as it is not its ironic imitation, but over-identification with it - by bringing to light the obscene superego underside of the system, over-identification suspends its efficiency. Communist ideology was inevitably pushing towards hierarchised system of belonging in which belonging to a certain community, region, group or association according to appropriate particular properties or attributes becomes the basic requirement on which the negotiations of one’s own identity are founded. Just as a reminder, for Agamben the most relevant distinction of the Tiananmen events was the relative absence of determinate contents in the students’ demands.

That is what any state cannot tolerate in any way, that the singularities form a community without affirming an identity, that humans co-belong without any representable condition of belonging.

(Agamben, The Coming Community, p.86) While the concept of human rights developed during the French Revolution was based on implicit assumptions about the homogeneity of the society at that time, today we have no homogenous society in this sense, since this would need the universal notion without any particularities that both Laclau and Agamben question from different perspective. If democracy is possible, it is because the universal has no necessary body and no necessary content; different groups, instead, compete between themselves to temporarily claim the universal and to give to their particularisms a function of universal representation…. •The unity of a political group is actually the result of an articulation of demands.

• However, the articulation of this unity does not correspond to some pre-established positive entity • The multitude of groups with claims against the oppressive regimes exists in different relationship to each other.

• They are divided by social, economic, r antagonisms.

(Laclau, On Populist Reason, 2005) It is the shared negativity, the collective opposition of the emancipatory subjects that unites them against the dominant regime. The naming of the emancipatory subjects or groups is not something that precedes the emancipatory struggle.

When the various political agents come together to articulate the same demands against the oppressive regime the new political unity - the “people” emerges as something that is discursively constructed in this process of emancipatory struggle.

THESIS OF THE NSK STATE

1. The synthesis of a unified system and a unified economy created the modern state.

2. In such a state art is an integrated political process subjected to the integrated production of consciousness.

3. Every art is therefore in the service of global authority, except that which subjects global authority to its own rule.

4. NSK State is an abstract organism, a suprematist body installed in real social and political space as a sculpture comprising the concrete body warmth, spirit and work of its members.

5. NSK confers the status of a state not to territory but to mind, whose borders are in a state of flux, in accordance with the movements and changes of its symbolic and physical collective body.

6. NSK considers its existence within the framework of an autonomous state as an artistic act to which all other creative procedures are subjected.

7. The NSK State embodies a social concept satisfying the needs of the community under the conditions of the modern world.

8. The NSK State reveals and performs an exorcism aiming at expelling the political language of global structures from the language of art. Zampa di Leone, Belgrade

Zlatko Trajkovski, 'Who knows when the sky will strike his blows, if the greatest misfortune is not a `No good for us." d.a.e. de Sade 1994

References

 Jacques Derrida – deconstruction of knowledge  Michel Foucault – knowledge/power, biopower and biopolitics  Louis Althusser – ideological apparatus  Ivan Ilich – deschooling society, vernacular knowledge  Paulo Freire – informal education and critical pedagogy  Jacques Rancière - emancipation of knowledge, Ignorant Schoolmaster  Community based knowledge  Knowledge based society  Self-education  Self-organisation  Networked community  Open source technology  Life-long learning Case study: modernism-postmodernism debate in Macedonia 1980s/90s, Skopje - Gallery 7 Protagonists: self-organised community consisting of

 ZERO - artists collective and other painters, sculptors, musicians, film directors  journalists, critics, philosophers, sociologists, writers and poets, architects, linguists, fanzine publishers, professors  accidental participants: dealers, spies, smugglers, addicts

Aleksandar Stankoski, The Last Supper, 1996

for Jacques Ranciere emancipation is

“the encounter between two heterogeneous processes”.

Jacques Rancière, “Politics, Identification and Subjectivization”, in John Rajchman, ed., The Identity in Question (New York and London: Routledge, 1995), 63. . Jacques Ranciere

emancipation is

“the encounter between two heterogeneous processes”.

Jacques Rancière, “Politics, Identification and Subjectivization”, in John Rajchman, ed., The Identity in Question (New York and London: Routledge, 1995), 63. . The first process is the one of governance

It assumes a creation of community that relies on distribution of shares, hierarchies of positions and functions. This is what Ranciere calls “policy”. The second process is the one of equality

Multitude of practices that start from the assumption that everybody is equal and aimt to prove this assumption