The Misfits.pdf - Muzej suvremene umjetnosti Zagreb

in direct contact with photographic materials.
By setting up self-referential relations in his
chosen medium, Jerman declared his non-
adherence to the photograph as an aesthetic
product as well as to a world where he found
the prevailing relations unacceptable. To live
his own art, rather than a predetermined art,
to leave his trace on photographic paper, to
write his intimate slogans on it, to keep his
photo diary, meant, to Jerman. to assert his
existence in the world and to contribute to the cre-
ation of new relations in which a person would no
longer feel subjugated and deceived. His strong
individualism was certainly provocative in a milieu
still affected by the pressure of socialist collec-
tivism.
Vlado Martek
State Territory Collage, 1983/1991
The atmosphere in which the works of the Group of
Six Artists originated was one of a spirit of open-
ness and of exploring everything that might
constitute an act of art. Vlado Martek shifted
his poetry from the book into various visual
areas: a mirror, objects made up of books,
poster poetry... He added a visual meaning to
the verbal one. Martek rebelled against the lit-
erary nature of a text, he wanted to extend
language, give words their "corpuscularity", to
overstep their boundaries, create the poetic in
a situation. At the same time, he conducted a
THE MISFITS I 30
dialogue with poetry in the samizdats The Little
Red Book, Poetry should be Fucked and False
Poetry. "quarreling" with it with statements such as:
"Today I stuck my language out at tongues", "If I
were poetry I
would be a bird," "I love you, poem,
because you are at a distance," "I am modern
enough to keep silent, and that is where poetry
begins," and he advocated the moral role of the
poet. The texts. "All writing is an act of honesty"
and "Before I write a poem I must pick up the
garbage in my street," are only a few in a series
of writings on the topic of "re-evaluating
poetry". But Martek does not stop there, he
wants more - to change life - to change it with
art actions which are a new way of life.
Indirectly, this means changing social rela-
tions: to attack the government, which teach-
es only respect and trust, to attack the state,
which permanently supports a system of
oppression and lack of freedom. His samizdats
are full of slogans: "Death to the state - free-
dom to art." "Down with the exploiters of
anarchy," "State, I shall disfigure you with art."
"I am in love with the state, long live adultery"
... And what were Martek's actions like? Ironic
and very witty. He handed out cookies bearing
the inscription, "Lie to the state" and leaflets
saying, "Artists, take up arms," he carried a
hairy flag through the streets, he sold money
for half its value, he tore up banknotes while
bathing in the sea ... The state had to be
attacked in all its manifestations of power
because, according to Martek. "The state is not a
passive animal."
The rejection of respect toward the outward
emblems of the State: the flag, money. the red
color of Communism, making fun of the authorities
and confronting them with the help of their sym-
bols - all this was characteristic of many of the
artists in the Group of Six Artists. Sven Stilinovit
painted the flag only in black-and-white relations,