The New Art Practice in Yugoslavia, 1966-1978

In addition to the above works Kocijani published a text on
the group KOD enttled The Vanguard of Novi Sad in the
bulletin of Encounters. The text was reprinted in Polja 142.
After Tjentite there was a brief period when the group's
activities were discontinued. KOD was reduced to four
members, the most typical representatives of the group's
activities who were closely related to each other by their
sensitivity and artistic preoccupations: Slavko Bogdanovi,
Miroslav Mandi, Slavko Tima and myself.
In the course of August 1970, while Slavko Bogdanovi and
myself were in Bosut and Nevesinje, Miroslav Mandi and
Slobodan Tima produced a joint work Contribution to the 4th
Triennial of Yugoslav Visual Art, which was published in Polja
143 in 1970. The work consisted of four projects and these
were the first conceptual works produced by the group.
Projects (ideas) conceived in advance were realized jointly:
Miroslav Mandi in Belgrade (visit to the Triennial in the
Museum of Contemporary Art), and Slavko Tima in Novi Sad.
Te project Coordinated Sensitivity was conceived as follows:
both participants imagined five geometrical forms which they
drew on paper; the forms were then compared and the degree
of coordinated sensitivity was determined. Similarly conceived
was the project: Complementarily: the elements for the
participants to imagine were blue, yellow and red, while yellow,
green and blue were the basic elements Realized in the same
way were projects Error Dimension (determining points of
entrance to the Museum of Contemporary Art) and "Ad acta
mobile 452" (postulating and actually working out the number
of steps from the Railway Station to the Museum of
Contemporary Art).
Part II Contribution to the 4th Triennial ... consisted of
interventions on reproductions of works exhibited at the
Triennial; these works, however, were not published.
Slavko Bogdanovi and myself simultaneously came upon
several independent ideas for works which in their approach
came close to conceptualism (though at the time we had no
knowledge of the movement).
Bogdanovi began to perform (different variants of) a series of
works Lines in Text: Some of the words on a page taken from
any book whatsoever he set off by lines which ran from the top
to the bottom of the page (the medium is the message). In some
of the works he used carbon paper, and two works were thus
obtained: one with a text and lines, the other with lines only
(T and T'). Another significant work of Bogdanovi's from that
period was the beginning of the practical implementation of
"Marsh", which was to be completed by the end of the year:
MARSH
(assumptions, procedure)
1. Following the method of personal observation of the field
covered by the word MARSH, sets of signs are sought which
have semantic meaning. These new sets are subjected to the
same procedure, and this is continued until MARSH has been
reduced to the level of signs.
2 The starting point is arbitrarily selected and in MARSH it
looks like this:
2.1. The semantic value of the initial set of letters (signs) is
not in itself essential to the project.
2.2.1. nouns: nominative singular
2.2.2. verbs: infinitive
2.2.3. pronouns: nominative singular
2.2.4. adjectives: nominative singular, masculine
2.2.5. exclamations
2.2.6. adverbs
2.2.7. conjunctions
2.3. The accentual value of the syllables is taken into
consideration in MARSH. In this way, one of the syllables can
be accentuated in different ways, if this allows for new semantic
values to be obtained.
3. In MARSH the reader can:
3.1. correct the errors of which there are at least 100/0
3.2. make a better systematization of MARSH
3.3. introduce by means of personal observation new words into
the system, thus fundamentally altering (enriching) the system.
3.4. subject the words from MARSH to a given procedure with
forms different from those described under 2.
3.5. obtain a complete break down of MARSH by means of
mathematical analysis.
3.6. do many other things besides.
42
My works from that period (AugustSeptember 1970) remained
at the level of ideas or outlines. Poetry was the starting point
for two of the works. The first was called Poem About its Own
Structure and was to have been a poem dealing with its proper
structure, and how it came into being; a text which would be at
the same time writing and an expounding of the process of
writing and the written work. The work did not go beyond the
initial stage. The second one was an idea for an exhibition of
poems-objects, in front of the lead typeface of the poems (the
most suitable would be Mallarma's poems) a mirror should be
fixed, of the same size as the lead typeface, and thus a closed
system of communication, existing independently, would be
obtained. The idea did not materialized because at the time
we were still not interested in exhibitions. A third work also
remained at the initial stage of a summer project in the spirit
of land-art: On the steep slope of a stony hill we were to paint
in red and orange a large surface which, viewed from a given
point on a nearby hill, would assume the shape of a regular
circle: by shifting the point of view of the observer this circle
would take on increasingly irreggular shapes.
In September 1970 at Biljana Tomi's invitation we were to
take part in Bitef (Belgrade Theatre Festival), but this plan did
not come through because we were unable to agree what
concrete form our participation should take.
From late September till early December 1970 we worked as
editors for the students' paper Index, in which we published
several of our works as well as those of Braco Dimitrijevi and
Goran Trbuljak.
In the course of October 1970 we carried out several works; this
represented the completion of a particular stage of our art
practice, a stage mainly characterized by: a broad scope and
variety of activities and interests. attempts to find a new
approach to the traditional artistic resources, media, languages,
to synthetize art, to identify art with life, to democratize art and
make it free of ideological influence and manipulation.
On October 9 we gave a "performance" at the Youth Tribune.
It was Miroslav Mandi's Three Three (Fig. 1691. Besides
Slavko Bogdanovi, Miroslav Mandi, Slavko Tima and myself,
Boko and Vladimir Mandi also took part. The whole project
for Three Three was conceived by Miroslav Mandi and it was
carried out in two parts: the first, without the audience, just
before the performance preparing and setting up the
"scenography" (environment) on the stage of the Youth Tribune,
and the second, the performance itself, which had a planned
and unplanned course.
Three Three was conceived in such a way as to present on
stage and in the hall all kinds of artistc manifestations: visual
arts, film, music, ballet, theatre, literature. Particular emphasis
was laid on visual art, which was present in the same way
throughout the whole performance: a combination of three basic
and three complementary colours: this was the most consistent
elaboration and practical manifestation of our earlier interest in
colours.
The environment for Three Three reflected six colours, six
participants, six arts, six squares. Between the stage and the
audience were horizontally tightened ropes in six colours which
represented a kind of transparent wall; between the "wall" and
the stage there was a metal construction of a square (the same
as that exhibited in open space and used in Joint), whose sides
were covered in paper of six different colours. At six different
points of the stage there were paper columns 2',(0.50 m blue,
red, yellow, violet, orange and green. In the background, in
front of a white canvass six different coloured circles (six
circles of art) were fixed to a rope. Three Three was to last
from the time the first spectator entered the hall until the last
one left. As the audience started to enter the hall we stood in
the paper columns, while the stage was open and fully lit up.
When the audience was seated and waiting for the beginning,
nothing happened for five minutes. and then at the same
moment we all tore up our paper columns and started
interpreting art. We painted our faces in a colour which was
complementary to that of the paper column from which we had
emerged. And then, to present a film we used a film-projector:
everything lit up by its rectangle (ourselves, the audience,
parts of the stage, the hall) was the film.
The performance had never been rehearsed everything that
was to take place, except for the scenography-environment, we
learned from Miroslav Mandi just before the beginning, so that
the unpredictable element played an important part: we counted