zagreb abstract

PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS OF THE CITY
Here are the truest faces of the city. In these works, we witness something
entirely different than we see living on the surface of the city. Life within
the skin of the town. The experience of being here is not merely sociological,
psychological and aesthetic (Art Informel), but also expressionistic:
a graffito, a trace, an incision, calligraphy or a stain... any residue of
anger or love!
All psychodiagnostics of the Rorschach blots, the landscapes of Cozens or
the demons of Justinus Kerner are in accord: the city (in contrast to the
village, the work of the Creator) is an invention of humans. Yet here,
creatures also leave their traces.
One could adopt all these imprints, all the city cortexes, membranes and
cuticles. And they would be more complete and magnificent than Tapies
and Fautrier together, though not stronger than Michaux, who circumnavigated
the globe and dared to venture into the deepest abysses of the termite mound.
It is very hard to follow him down there.
Amoebae, fibers, protozoa, subtle and rough drawings, hairy traces and
delicate scribblings, mortar structures and wood carvings reveal the signs
of life but also its naturalness. Here there is no such thing as coincidence.
As in a palimpsest, a new layer of life overlaps an older one, modifying its
state but always carrying the evidence of its foundations.
Corrosion, dilapidated facades, doors and doorframes, wounded and bitten
surfaces and skins, heavy tears and weeping metal plates, technological
pollution, metallic water drops, remains of walls, corrosive spit and
metastasizing of subcutaneous amoebae, but also the tender, almost watercolored
landscapes or remnants of words and letters...
Is this the childhood of the city? Its belated innocence in contrast to a
fake and embellished image of life? All life united in a collective mirror
while policemen of cleanness watch over emotions and baton-charge graffiti
artists. Nothing can silence human thunderstorms and calm seas etched into
the skin of the city. This is not Marijan Detoni’s ‘Fantasy of a deteriorated
wall’ of the 1930s: a painting of great importance that could easily mark
the beginning of the Art Informel era and prance through art collections
if it only belonged to a culturally less neglected environment.
However, here are the true faces of the city. I was blind, and now I see. I
did not know Zagreb was so beautiful. For far too long, from a distance, I
was redundantly observing forms and shapes which did not impress me. Finally
I can say: ‘Amen’ (as it is written on some wall).
Ive Šimat Banov