The exhibition presents the outcome of more than two years of researching “social transformation“. It is conceived as an imaginative and analytical space that – with a certain distance – enables the visitor to see and reflect the processes of change that started by the fall of the Iron Curtain and have to an extent continued until the present. The way this topic is approached is influenced by a feeling of affiliation to these changes which are in a way co-formed by us and whose impact affects and influences us. It is therefore an attempt to look at “transformation” as at a “lived out” and gradually receding process.
While researching transformation processes, we abandoned the reductive theories of the region that we come from and that we represent. We extended research to artistic and theoretical outputs that reflect the transformations in Spain, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Germany, Albany, Mexico and Poland. The attempt to newly formulate trans-local specifics of transformation meant to abandon the stigmatic construction of so-called “Eastern Europe” and opt for a differentiated, authoritative and new map of the world of transformation.
One of the possible ways how to approach this exhibition is to see it as a layer with various artifacts that are mutually connected. The exhibition presents a group of theoretical and artistic outputs that go back together to a certain time and place and represent a sum of past activities. The motif of this common return to the past is the need to destroy the clarity and definiteness of the view of the “transformation” that one has gained through individual experience.
The exhibition will present several unique works of art that have never been on display in the Zagreb before and that belong to the cornerstone references of that period.
Lida Abdul’s work is rooted in the devastation of war and in a sublimation of healing. In her videos, Afghani ruins appear as images from a dreamscape–both real and surreal–steeped in forgotten histories and mystery. To acknowledge a ruin in a war torn country, even to pick up a single stone, is to breathe life back into a culture that has been put on hold. The men and women in her films acknowledge their fate, striving to re-awaken by acts of sheer resilience and by compulsive repetitive gestures. Abdul’s films evoke survival and a path to recovery.
The movie Where I was? by the Indonesian artist Anggun Priambodo from 2008 is taking us back to that period of time through a series of stories told by ten year old photographs of his subjects. Where were you ten years ago when a big turning point took place in Indonesia on May 1998?
This work sensitively and on a personal level touches the basic trauma of “settling” with the post-communist past.
Polish artist Artur Zmijewski brought together young representatives of two political groupings in his film They. He staged leftists and conservative Catholics in an empty fabric space to persuade each other and to lead discussions. It is an exemplificative display of real political controversy that is the basis of society. The film is based on a definition of democracy as a natural conflict where different views of the world are a natural component of the system. The system, however, has to be embedded in such a way as not to wipe away the mechanisms of conflict and not to become violent (Chantal Mouffe).
Another unique piece is a film – documentation of performance by Ivan Moundov, Traffic Control. The performance was realized in Cetinje in 2002. In this performance the artist, dressed as a Bulgarian policeman, directs traffic while he investigates the reactions of the drivers. As Moudov says, his performance “is a way of acting on the laws and the regulations without breaking them (…) it’s a question of the subtle difference between the legality and the illegality of the actions.”
The art work I don´t always agree – this is the way artist Lise Harlev formulate a subjective point of view on various political and social issues. By contrast, her textual messages – short, highly communicative text- express the personal opinion of the artist, as well as the opinions of other individuals, outside and inside the art world.
rnLise Harlev’s intention is to question, with sharp humour, the possibility of expressing a personal and complex opinion in the local and international scenario that is increasingly divided in opposite ideological alignments. (Vít Havránek & Zdenìk Baladrán)
Vít Havránek is an art historian and theoretician. He worked as a curator in the Municipal Gallery Prague, in the National Gallery in Prague and since 2002 has been the director of the initiative tranzit.cz (www.tranzit.org). He writes texts about contemporary art for catalogues (Centre Pompidou Paris, MIT Press etc.) and organizes and curates exhibitions (Secession Vienna, tranzitdielne Bratislava, Le Plateau Paris, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Municipal Gallery Prague etc.). He is an associated editor for JRP Ringier, Zurich, and lecturer at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague and abroad (Stedelijk Museum, MIT Boston, Konstfack Stockholm etc.). In 2010, he will be curating the European biennial Manifesta 8.
Zbynìk Baladrán is an artist, author and curator, living and working in Prague. He studied art history at the Charles University in Prague and visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He regularly exhibits in the Czech Republic and abroad (Manifesta 5, Folkwang Museum Essen, Monthermoso Vittori etc.). He is one of the founders and curators of the gallery tranzitdisplay in Prague. Since 2006, he has been working on the project Monument to Transformation.
The exhibition is organized by Tranzit and Galerija Miroslav Kraljević
Main partner of the project Monument to Transformation: ERSTE Stiftung
Supported by: Embassy of the Czech Republic in Zagreb
