The New Art Practice in Yugoslavia, 1966-1978

started a spontaneous happening w.th the participation of a
large part of the audience. The action satisfied the need for a
collective discharge of energy produced by the atmosphere
among the spectators. This was also the first, or at least one
9f the first recorded instances of spontaneous destruction, or
the end of the illusionistic approach, though it probably did
not go beyond the ludic level because the partcipants took
the remains of the works to keep them at home.
After this event the environments and interventionist projects
of the young generation no longer showed the full continuity
of spatial building, though this was the only identifiable
element during a brief perod if we disregard the different
intentions that resulted from the new approach, which at that
stage was still mixed with the prevailing old concepts.
Apart from individual and group work, mention should
be made of several exhibitions which contributed to the
emergence of a new all tude to artworks, ie to a better
understanding of the demands that the new type of art places
on the audience. We shall single out some of the exhibitions
presented at the Students Centre Gallery, organized mainly
thanks to 2elimir Koevi's efforts (with the exception of the
spontaneous happening at the Hit-Parade exhibition). They
include The Exhiblion of Men and Women (Fig. 65), Mail Items
(Fig. 74), Action Total (Fig. 76) and The Exhibition of Old
Obituaries.
The audience invited to the opening of the exhibition (at the
end of the 1970 season) was offered the opportunity of looking
at themselves in a totally empty gallery. Th's shifting of the
accent from the exhibit to the audience was reinforced by a text
stating the procedure and purpose of the exhibit:on: it was to
be »an intimate encounter of the exhibits» out of which »the
World itself would emerge reborn before the face of Art».
Almost at the same time Boris Buan and Davor Tomii put
up the 'r posters on hoardings around town with the idea of
attracting the attention of passers-by and not of a select
exhibition audience. In front of the posters which featured no
persuasive messages, »soloist concerts, were performed and
Action Total leaflets distributed:
«The Draft Decree on the Demorcratization of Art:
The following is hereby abolished: painting, sculpture,
graphic art, applied arts, industrial design, architecture and
urban planning.
A ban is hereby placed on the following: all activity in the
history of art and especially the so-called art criticism.
3 There shall be no exhibitions in galleries, museums or
art pavilions..
There followed a critcal presentation of the current situation in
visual arts and a call for forms of art and culture accessible
to all as opposed to the prevailing élitism.
The audience at the Students' Centre Gallery was not able to
see the announced exhibition Mail Items, which had arrived
from the 1971 Paris Biennal des jeunes, because it was
exhibited in the gallery exactly as '1 had arrived literally as
a mail item packed in a box. This identification cl the means of
transport with the medium may be interpreted as duplication or
tautological condensation of the message offered by Mail Art,
but also as a crit cal comment similar to sabotaging the
approach adopted by art galleries and art historians in a type
of art which can function through direct contact and dispense
with professional mediators. The gesture contains an innovation
in the gallery procedure it animates and stimulates the
audience to th.nk. despite the exclusion of the original
information.
The exhibition of old obituaries shown in 1972 helped to destroy
the cult of the art work, disclose new media charged with
semantics and even draw the spectator's attention to an
unexplored field (the phenomenon of death), though on the first
level the exhibition consisted of graprtc design of the past and
a culturological attraction.
These exhibitions were characterized not only by a different
content but also by such a change in form that we may describe
it as creative interpretation. 2elimir Koevi's approach cannot
be fully .dentified because none of the exhibitions declared the
awareness of the artistic act what they emphasised was the
precedence of ethics over aesthetics, which is one of the
characteristics of the current artistic production that we want
to review here. Even if we do not accept these procedures as
art, they nevertheless illustrate in an interesting way how
frontiers between profess.ons can disappear and how a new
awareness of and atmosphere for the creative work of others
can be produced.
In this context we should like to mention that some credit for
suggesting new ideas for exhibitions and organizing them
also goes to 2eljka Corak (»The City as the Scene of Visual
Happening., a regular feature of the Zagreb Salon since 1971)
and to the author of the present review (the idea for a series
of exttbitions featuring artists of the same generation with
novel conceptions). Other exhibitions worthy of mention are
«Possibilities for 1971. (Figs. 79-86) an exhibition of
interventions in the urban environment and «Possibilites
72. an exhibition of the new generation of photographers:
the idea for several exhibitions that were to present the
work of designers, architects and cinematographers never
materialized, and orgartzational difficulties prevented the
realization of the proposed »Test Range» that was to be held
at id in 1972. The idea was to give young artists the opportunity
to plan the entire cultural life of a community from
designing the title of the local bank to deciding about the
cinema programme and thus stimulate the specIfic
development of that or any other developing small town.
A similar participation of theoreticians in art events can be
observed at a much earlier date for instance in Boris
Kelemen's lectures in Zagreb and Split (1966 and 1967), in
which he introduced spec'al effects and projects in order
to illustrate the methods and techniques used in contemporary
art. Ida Biard may be said to have gone furthest in this
direction in organizing the collective exhibitions entitled
provocatively «Another Chance to Become an Artst. and
»Innovations.: instead of choosing the exhibits herself, she
invited the artists to show what each of them considered
innovative and explain their choice.
The youngest generation of artists adopted a critical
attitude to some pr:nciples of the established practice of art
and to the commonly accepted dependence of young
artists on older generations. Dissatisfied with the paternalist
relationship, they considered them their rivals who should
be defeated their achievements should be equalled and
then excelled through the adoption of a more avant-garde
and profound approach. Though in some respects they
continued along the lines of the contemporary developments on
the art scene, they never established a d. rect and close
contact with the older generation of artists and were not
influenced by them. What they maintained was the continuity of
an affirmative attitude to progressive, modern thinking and
work. Some older artists, whom we already mentioned as
predecessors of the movement, maintained their contacts with
the new generation. But it never resulted in a close
association and each of the artists concerned preserved his
artistic individuality. Thus no groups or teams were formed
nor were any work programmes or manifestos formulated.
Stoi provided the initial idea for Buan's Pictorial Loop,
(Fig. 66). Knifer still supports some of the efforts of the young
generation towards an alternative relation to social structures,
and Koari participates in all interventions. Only Stoi made
an attempt at forming a working party a co-operative of
young art sts, but now only Gudac still occasionally works
with him. Apart from this, links have been formed within a
generation circle but these have been very general in
character and have ranged from meetings at parties and
discussions to sharing studios and exhibition space.
Very early on, these artists went a separate way from their
colleagues who had more conventional interests. While the
latter continued their train:ng in the workshops led by
established artists, who determined the character of their
work, the former collected information on the latest trends of
the international art scene from literature and direct experience.
As their work became more and more unconventional in relation
to the standard approach and interpretation of art in this
country, they moved away from social structures so that
recognition and reputation did not come their way.
The credit for the first public presentation of this generation
goes to 2elimir Koevi: he organized a competition for the
best environment with!ri the Students' Centre Gallery with the
materials that could be obtained from various factories. The
following artists entered the competition and showed their
projects in the 1969 70 season: Dalibor Martinis, Slobodan
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