The New Art Practice in Yugoslavia, 1966-1978

oppressive conventions of the art system and the market,
which assigns the artist the role of inventor of new aesthetic
forms, i.e. that of creator a new consumer aesthetics. The
second manifestation of this kind was his one-man show at the
Gallery of Contemporary Art: the written sentence The fact
that someone has a chance to make an exhibition is more
important than what will be exhibited at the exhibition (Fig. 138),
was the only exhibit in the large rooms of the gallery. Trbuljak
thus laid bare the fact that the promotion power of exhibition
institutions had become a force in itself and was much more
efficient than the persuasive power of any individual creativity;
he was developing Buren's observation that museums and
galleries are not neutral places at which works of art are
exhibited, but their frame and limit.' Trbuljak began the
analysis of the contradictions between the artist and the
society in the field that was closest to him that of artistic
structures and their repressive mechanisms. He criticized the
methods by which the commercial value of works of art is
established (On Tuesdays and Fridays this work is worth
1,000 dinars, and the rest of the week nothing), the ways in
which the status of artist is acquired in the eyes of the public
(An artist is a person whom others have given the chance to
be that) (Fig. 139), the functioning of the institution of awards
and praise in the creation of the artist myth (/ have submitted
a proposal to the award committee to give me an award for
a work I shall create in the future). During his stay in Paris,
where the opposition between the individual creative ethics
and the commercially based art system is more sharply
expressed, Trbuljak's criticism acquired more direct forms. The
fortune of the art product in the capitalist exchange system
does not differ from that of other goods: commercial success
is commensurate to the quantity of media and the efficiency
of the methods used in marketing the merchandise. Among
these the creation of the myth surrounding the artist has
proved to be the most efficient: the attraction of the aura
created around the artist's name ensures the interest of the
market and therefore the construction of individual
mythologies becomes the ultimate purpose of the activity of the
entire promotion structure. It is therefore not surprising that
Trbuljak's systematical analysis resulted inevitably in sharp
criticism of the practice of .name creation», which he tried to
oppose by publishing his works under an assumed name (in
an anthology of conceptual art published in 1971 he was
included as Grgur Kulijas) or by signing them as an
anonymous conceptual artist». Trbuljak concludes ironically
that an artist acquires the right to his name only by
establishing himself in the art structure: he therefore signs his
work only after he has received the confirmation of a reputable
gallery that it will exhibit it Analysing the mutual dependence
of the two values «the reputation of the gallery» «the success
of the work of art", he observes that the success of the work
of art in the cultural context does not depend on its immanent
quality but rather on the power and reputation of the gallery
that launches it. In other words, individual success in art, and
elsewhere, is not necessarily in proportion with the quality of
the work. One of the indicators of the artist's repute is the way
his name is quoted in the press: Trbuljak often finds that his
name has been misspelt in journals or in his mail, which leads
him to the conclusion: A misspelt name is the same as
somebody else's name, that is. anonymous."' This gives him
the idea of exhibiting at the gallery of the Students' Cultural
Centre in Belgrade as Torbuljak, and of sending an anagram
composed of the letters of his name for the exhibition at the
gallery Studio 16 e in Turin, thus offering in advance the
possibility for various permutations of his own name. The
ironic commentary The correctly spelt name makes an artist
stresses the artificiality of the system based on the star
principle, in which the name itself, i. e. the trade mark of a
famous artist or gallery can promote any product into a
valuable work of art. In the bourgeois cultural system the chain
gallery-journal-museum is only a service in selling the
merchandise on the art market and the criteria of each of
these institutions result from or are adapted to that function.
In Paris in 1972 Trbuljak made a round of several galleries and,
without revealing his identity, asked their exhibition directors
to fill in the following questionnaire: "Do you want to exhibit
this work in your gallery, 1. Yes, 2. No, 3. Perhaps." The
9 Daniel Buren: Limites critiques, Paris 1970.
0 Goran Trbuljak, the text in the catalogue of the exhibition. the Student
Cultural Centre Gallery. Belgrade 1977.
answers were typical: most of them were negative without any
questions asked about the work (Fig. 140). The percentage
structure of the answers remained unchanged in the next stage
of the survey, in which Trbuljak repeated the question after
having introduced himself and shown his references. The
incident shows that the criteria of selection in the art system,
if the galleries Trbuljak visited are taken as a representative
sample, do not include that of the quality of the work of art:
although the galleries included in the survey specialize in
contemporary art (Lambert, Bama, Sonnabend, TempIon, loals,
and the Centre National d'Art Contemporain), each of them
reacted according to its status in the hierarchy of the art
scene, expecting the artist to observethe rules of the system
and the conventions of the strategic game.
The art system is the first power system which the young
artist must face. In the long years of struggle that follows
human and creative dignity are often jeopardized: the invitation
to an exhibition may be withdrawn without any explanation if
the artist wants to show a work of his own choice. What
characterizes Trbuljak's private and artistic personality is the
way in which he reacts to the ethical deformations caused by
the competitive nature of the art scene: Trbuljak tries to expose
such cases in order to elevate individual experience to the
level of an articulated and systematic analysis. Each of his
creative acts is both self-destructive and contradictory, because
it makes it possible and at the same time more difficult to
establish his identity and to work within the same structure.
Although such isolated attempts of rebellion cannot change the
essence of the system, they draw attention to the hidden or
overlooked aspects of art. Things that have been passed over
in silence in the traditional interpretation of art in order to
maintain the illusion about the sublime nature of art, constitute
the subject of analysis in the new artistic, practice (Art and
Language, Buren, Haacke, Fox). The work of art has become
a reflection on the functioning of the art system, which in turn
mirrors the whole social system. In this way the artist has
become a detector and critic of social contradictions.
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