iva kovač

2011-07-02T15:55:00.011+02:00

Darling, Sorry for Not Writing Earlier (work in progress)

It is common to address objects and events that are dear to us as people, and personify them. In Croatia, in the 1990's we have witnessed the expansion of emotions towards the newly established nation state. The intensity with which such love speech has populated the public discourse suddenly deflated in the 2000's together with the repository of images that embodied it. In the work "Darling, Sorry for Not Writing Earlier" we recall these images while we reveal, in a form a love letter, a multi-layered relationship in which, unlike the idealistic speech of non-consummated love, we introduce confessionary speech, a speech of remorse and uncertainty after the sexual relationship ceases to be exclusively binary. In place of standard, nationalistic rhetoric, which sets the nuclear family as its building block, we attempt to multiply that love, divide it amongst more potential subjects, and make it sexually heterogeneous.

The work "Darling, Sorry for Not Writing Earlier" is made in collaboration with Elvis Krstulovic and presented in a form of a gallery installation that consists of two videos and an audio. One recording displays Medvedgrad* with the capital Zagreb in the background while the other displays a segment of the sea coast. The sound which illuminates the space is a speech in the form of a letter in which the speaker regrets for committed love misdoings, reveals love intrigues that burden "her" relationship with "her".

* a medieval fortress above the city on which in the 1990's the "altar of the state" was placed as it became a location for formal protocol

2011-07-02T15:47:00.009+02:00

Srna*, the Asexual Gender (work in progress)

From the seventh year of my life there are video documents that prove my existence. My father bought our first video camera in 1989 and the focus of his recording interest, up until the birth of my sister, was on me. In these four years of my life, my sexuality has developed rapidly and the awareness of this development has most vividly manifested itself. On the other hand this was also the time when the conflict between my sexuality and the assigned gender role arose. These changes of course have't been documented on tape. The lack of evidence can be understood as a result of culturally determined choice of events/things as those to be remembered, while open manifestations of sexuality and sexual desire have to unfold in solitude or in the company of peers. Sentimental records of my existence therefore represent a little girl from the viewpoint of a grown-up who does not know or doesn't want to know about the subliminal aspects of her conscience.

In the video installation Srna*, the asexual gender I will explicate personal thoughts and deeds that unveil multilayered features of my sexual development, which purport adoption of certain gender roles by superposing personal memories and theories about child's sexual development over appealing nostalgic imagery of a child/myself at the age when sexuality is not to be discussed.

*Srna [Deer], a charter from the novel Duga [Rainbow] by Croatian author Dinko Šimunović, deals with the prescribed gender roles of a female child but in no way references her sexuality.

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2011-06-26T02:35:00.022+02:00

When I’m Five*

* I will jump in puddles, laugh in church and marry my mum / And I’ll let my daddy do the washing-up
David Bowie When I’m Five

According to two adaptations of Paul Gauguin's life in which the role of Gauguin is played by Donald Sutherland and later, his son, Kiefer Sutherland I recognize the difference in the portrayal of the character of Methe Gad Gauguin, Paul Gauguin's spouse. While both movies represent the modernist hero in a very similar way Methe, in the first movie, is portrayed as as a negative / ugly character while in the second one she (spouse / mother) is represented as a prevailingly positive / beautiful character.

Utilizing these two adaptations of Gauguin's life and the life of his close ones, relaying on biographical facts, I create fiction. The text that evolves through these reflections becomes a scenario. Focusing on the factual relationship between the two actors in the adaptations of Gauguin's life I create a factitious connection based on the clinical diagnosis of Oedipus complex and it's interpretation in literature.

Concentrating on the ideological schism between Modernism and the Contemporary I tend to reevaluate significant Modernist authors. I do not approach this task through formalistic appropriation of dominant Modernist attributes, which are to be given a new meaning through placement in a new context leaving the viewer to inscribe meaning from the Contemporary perspective. My objective is to create elaborated narratives employing a didactical approach but not necessarily by relaying on facts.

public presentations/exhibitions:
Fifth Days of Graphic Arts, Gallery of Fine Arts Osijek, XV Biennial of young artists from Europe and Mediterranean, Thessaloniki (upcoming)

2010-05-07T19:05:00.024+02:00

Art & Market

Art&Market is a colaborative art related research project started with Elvis Krstulovic on a three-month residency in Republic of Korea, we were engaged with questions such as art’s relation to money, as well as art’s position in gentrification processes and inherent power relations within public space.

The project at this first stage was realized as two forums open to the public which were held at the Stone&Water Gallery in Anyang. First forum was titled Art Contracts & Artists Rights and it explored the legal rights of authors in transactions of ownership of their work, as well as the positions art takes in relation to the market. The second forum was titled Gentrification & Public Art and it explored the public space as politically charged one, as well as public art - a practice that participates in the social realm and is thus exceptionally responsible for the consequences of its actions - but it also explored the possible subversive political potential of arts.
The presentation of the texts was followed by discussions with the audience and invited guests.

Another part of our project, which was meant to address the local experiences and issues in regard to the gentrification processes and public art, were two interviews we made with directors of two alternative art spaces in Korea. Our approach to the SAP2009 project was to initiate discussions about the position of arts within the social and economical processes, to work on recontextualization of art itself, as well as to provoke critical thinking about the public space and relations of power inherent in it.

The last part of our project consists of the documentation presented in two forms, one being the website and another being the newspapers that both document and further the communication started trough our research.

2009 onwards / lectures-conversations, publication and a website
public presentations/exhibitions:
Stone&Water Gallery Korea, AKC Medika Zagreb, Labyrint 09 - Writings and Observations, Botkyrka Konsthall Sweden, Center for Contemporary Art Celje; Moscow Young Art Biennial Moscow; Nova Gallery Zagreb; Volume Collection, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMSU) Rijeka; Volume Collection, Multimedia Cultural Center (MKC) Split

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2009-01-09T21:16:00.035+01:00

distribution of knowledge

Distribution of Knowledge is an art related research project dealing with the position of artists from Eastern Europe in the time of former East. Together with Nataša Tepavčević I have conducted interviews with some of the most important protagonists of what might be called East European art scene in order to rethink what kind of art from the East was advocated at the time the iron curtain fell and what the artists who took part in this scene think of that sudden interest today after it has deflated.

2008/09 conversations and interviews
public presentations/exhibitions: 28 Youth Salon - Salon of the Revolution Zagreb, Flu Gallery Belgrade, Labyrint 09 - Writings and Observations, Botkyrka Konsthall Sweden

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2009-01-08T21:13:00.041+01:00

re-creation

In “Re-creation” I’m dealing with the subject of body art in the context of visual arts. More specifically in relation to authors who (whose bodies) do not appear in their performances in the role of objects, so as to say they do not appear in the performances at all but they rather position others in the role of objects – performers who do not share the authorship of the piece. These artists are not questioning their position of 'exploiters' while using others, and are not pointing to the unequal distribution of power – implying their privileged position as natural or creating an ambivalent scenario leaving space for different interpretations.

2008 / 3 oil paintings on canvas + text
public presentations/exhibitions: SC Gallery Zagreb, O3on Gallery Belgrade
award: best thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb in the year 2007/08

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Since “Re-creation” was conceived in order to become my thesis work at the Academy of fine arts, it is the work in which I wanted to comment theoretical as well as ethical issues I was engaged with, but according to the occasion through the medium of painting (as I was about to graduate painting) as well as text. I was interested in debating questions that arose from conceptual practices with relatively traditionally painted figurative paintings of monumental size in order to stress this disproportion rarely developed in contemporary art. Therefore, this text is an integral part of the work whereby I compare three different artists as case studies considering their moral positions in the art world and their potential influence on the viewer and therefore the preceding development of art.

The consequences of using one owns body in artistic work

Amelia Jones defines body art as a „set of performative practices“ that appear during the 1960's in which artists use/exhibit their own bodies and thereby “through such intersubjective engagement, instantiate the dislocation or decentering of the Cartesian subject of modernism”. In other words because of the appearance of the artist’s body as part of the artwork, the author is positioning her/himself at the same time in the position of the subject (as a creator) and as an object (for s/he is presenting her/himself as an object onto which the viewers can inscribe meaning [1]). “This dislocation is” claims Amelia Jones, “the most profound transformation constitutive of what we have come to call postmodernism.” [2]

Jones refers to the personality of Jackson Pollock, not as an agent of this transformation or a consequence, but as an indicator of the transformation. By the modernist critics he was celebrated as an artist transcending his own body by recording his thoughts and feelings directly onto the surface of the canvas using the body as a tool – subjecting it to the mind. This thought matches the Cartesian [3] understanding of body and mind as two separate entities of which the body is, of course, subjected to the mind. In order to introduce the public with the ingenuity of the modernist artist it was required to introduce the interpreter. This interpreter is the modernist art – critic who is able to read the meaning of the artwork based on the sole formal characteristics of the work not affected by the context of its’ genesis. Clement Greenberg, one of the most influential theoreticians of high modernism, advertised the notion of disinterested judgment [4] as the proper way to analyze artworks. In accordance with this, the art critic was expected to demonstrate neutrality as well as a stance that the object of analysis can be classified because if not the competence of the art historian – critic would be brought to question, as that of an interested subject (the person who is led by her/his own desires when interpreting). In accordance with this interpretation of the artistic act the artist and the critic assumed a privileged position in society. In a way they positioned themselves within eternal (non contextual) universal categories (of quality). Hereby, in addition to the ingenious artist of Romanticism, we have the privileged interpreter of the modernism.

At the same time Pollock’s body appears in the photo documentation of the painterly act (performance) along with the magazine articles about his work and later also on film that appeared in specialized, as well as in popular media [5]. Although author’s appearance beside the article about his work was not a curiosity, in Pollock’s case it was specificity that the artist was photographed in the act of painting, emphasizing the process that was furthermore – theatrical. Boosted by the cold war propaganda of the time, Hans Namuth's photographs rapidly spread through the media and gained cult status. This document of the artistic act will be taken up by the next generation of authors that incorporated their bodies as one of, or the only means, used in their artistic work (what the public can see). This documentation therefore became an important reference to the younger generation of artists. Surfacing the artist’s body - the possible engagement of the interpreter, or to say art critic, is exposed. Therefore the critic loses the status of the disinterested translator whose duty is to unambiguously interpret the pictorial facts on display.

The normative body of the artist

Amelia Jones interprets the causes and consequences of concealing the artist’s body as a way of gaining and maintaining power. „The modernist genius must have a body that is visible as male, and yet this body must be naturalized (made invisible) in order for rhetoric of transcendentalism to do its work successfully: the artist as divinely inspired is effectively disembodied, and ostensibly de-sexed, in the art historical or critical text.[6]” The system that kept the artists' body concealed, and by doing so enabled just a small number of people to be regarded possible artists, was now collapsing. This subversive potential of the body is one of the reasons that so many artists, that according to some of their physical characteristics did not conform to the normative artists body of the time (as well as those that pertained to this norm and could profit from that position, but didn't want to) start to use their body as a part of their artistic practice.

Carolee Schneemann is exhibiting her body and therefore positioning herself as an object in front of the public (the role women most commonly had, as represented through art history) but this time as well as the author, that is, as the thinking subject pointing out her ability to create art while being a woman. For instance, in performance “I/Eye body”, Schnemann uses her own body as actual part of her art work, referring to 'action painting' – she spills color and various materials over her own body and her surrounding, but the result this time is not the painting but performance itself.
Vito Acconci, artist influenced amongst other things with feminist art and feminist art criticism emerging at the time, creates works that emphasizes the contingence of the subject in regards to viewers 'desires'. Concurrently with many feminist artists, he questions the prevailing imperative of the white male artist as normative, even though he himself was not endangered by it. In his work “Seedbed”, he directly approaches the ways art institutions conceal artists body so not to shatter the established system that determines who can and cannot partake in the production of high art. Acconci is hiding in the gallery underneath a ramp on which the visitors are walking and thus cannot see him. He reacts to the sounds of the footsteps by masturbating and the loud speakers are amplifying the sound of his heavy breathing around the room. The visitors directly affect the realization of his work, and therefore he accentuates his dependence on others in creation and interpretation of his work, questioning the authority of the genius as complete and autonomous creative subject.
Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese artist working in the US, stands naked in provocative pose in front of her paintings and through this act stresses her position as the double Other. She takes a role of a media star (the object of desires) but at the same time represents herself as the artist ('the master of intentionality')[7].

Body (as an) image – Image of the body

For the realization of my thesis I have chosen photo documentation of three art pieces – performances: “Anthropometries” by Yves Klein, “Sculture vivente” (Living sculptures) by Piero Manzoni and “VB35” by Vanessa Beecroft and transposed them into paintings. I have transferred the documentation with least deviation from the photographical template so I wouldn't modify the way the authors themselves envisioned visual presentation of their performances. Modifications that do occur do so only because of the transference of the medium. While painting, I was not trying to deny nor hide particularities of this medium, but I was not trying to emphasize them either. As I was using small reproductions as basis for the paintings (appropriated from books or the Internet and later magnified) the character of these photographs has prevailed over the photographical precision. The paintings are large in order to obtain a 'human scale', in comparison with the viewer, as well as to stress the difference between the paintings and the documentation which is commonly accessible in a small scale. I have retained the fidelity to documentation in the transference of colors as well. Two paintings are black and white because the works they are referring to are from the 1960’s (therefore the documentation was black and white as well) while the third one is in full color because it is depicting a more recent work that was documented with a color film. I decided to abide this difference, for it enables almost immediate recognition that the depicted scenes are coming from different (art) historic periods.

With this work I was not trying to position painting within the framework of contemporary art, nor was I trying to raise issues about the legitimacy of creating images in contemporary world, the issues of quotations etc. I have chosen painting as the most appropriate medium for re – contextualization of the subject matter that is being addressed in these works made in other mediums; works that are themselves referring to painting, or, in Manzoni’s case, to sculpting [8]. The paintings function as indexes of the thought process I was developing trough creation of “Re-creation”. The recognition of motives can lead to a better understanding of the works and therefore those who are familiar with the works of mentioned artists are able to create their own connections and their own interpretation of my work. Those viewers that don’t recognize what the origins of the images are can probably recognize that they are some kind of media imagery – photo documentation and that the prevailing motif is the standard motif used throughout the art history – the female nude. By not clarifying what these paintings mean to me I am risking the reproduction of stereotypical views. Although I am referring to the works of specific authors, my intention wasn’t to communicate directly the reasons that have triggered me into creation of this work. I wanted to clarify my own reasons for confronting these works in critical interrelations through textual description.

Initially, I have been interested in the work of Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni who operated at the very beginnings of Body art – respectively at the period in which the body has entered the high art arena as the integral part of the artworks, although the theoretical discourse related to the use of body as part of the artwork was developed later. Hence these artists are most commonly referred to in relation to the beginnings of conceptual art – pre-conceptual practices.
Later I have decided to include the work of a contemporary artist Vanessa Beecroft what has led to a slight shift in focus. What I found most interesting was to employ a comparison of Klein and Beecroft because of a certain similarities in their art practices. Manzoni, whose artistic position I can relate to much more, serves as the reference point I return to while re – thinking the other two artists.

The medium in which the particular works of the mentioned artists have been developed is the medium of performance, what was itself an indicator of many shifts that have occurred throughout the 20th century. Klein and Manzoni were using performance in order to separate themselves from the traditional mediums that prevailed in visual arts at the time. In Vanessa Beecroft’s case it is not the matter of separating from the traditional artistic practices. Rather, she references painting through aesthetization of performances that evoke classical paintings, but the products alone are highly aesthestizied performances as well as their documentation that scores high monetary value on the art market.

People (subjects?) in the role of objects

Reacting to the photographs of Pollock in the act of painting, artists like Yves Klein inaugurate new attention to the performative possibilities within visual arts. By doing that they are disrupting the stable system of values attained by hiding the artists’ body, and in this way enabling participation to only few. In his “Anthropometries“. Klein is governing naked models avoiding the physical contact, evoking the method of Jackson Pollock (who as well avoided touching the surface of the canvas while painting) known from Hans Namuth's photographs. Klein is a creator and the models are his tools – brushes that, according to his instructions, apply color onto their bodies and „paint“ by pressing their naked bodies on the papers on the floor and the walls of the exhibition space. By doing this, Klein indicates that art is a thought (conceptual) process and not a physical one [9]. Klein substituted Pollock’s tools with female bodies, plain enamel with patented „YKB“, silence of the studio with an string orchestra playing the “Monotone Symphony”, working clothes with a suit (he requests the same of the audience just like Vanessa Beecroft will today). Thereby he refers to Pollock, but at the same time he distinguishes himself from the 'rugged' appearance of the worker – artist and takes a pose of an aristocrat 'dandy'.
Although he is working at the time the myth of a genius artist is being deconstructed - marked with the Body art itself and other performative practices - he is staging or performing himself as the one who transcends his body, and only by using his mind he can govern the matter – other bodies. In so doing Klein reproduces the image of a genius that was constructed through history and reaching its peak in the high modernism that re – postulates the Cartesian dualism of body and mind according to which the whole and unified “self” is located within the human mind or spirit while the body is an empty vessel carrying the mind. It is only “natural” that Klein uses the bodies of women that are in majority of dualistic systems presented as the “material”, hence the inferior element of the binary opposition [10]. Using the medium of performance, Klein is executing – performing his own body, presented as mind creating an allegory of the Cartesian world order in the very moment the medium he himself is using is pointing to the particularities of subject in the works of previously excluded artists that by some of their bodily characteristics (sex, race...) were not fit to perform the role of an artist. Putting himself on the stage, he himself becomes one of the objects for the audience, gaining the position not dissimilar to that he prescribed to his tools, even though he has clearly designated the hierarchy by positioning himself as the mind – the one who is leading and giving orders. The “Anthropometries”, because of its direct positioning of women as nameless objects and Klein as 'the mind' caused numerous critical reactions and therefore gave rise to the questioning of social positions – positions in art considering sex and gender.

Vanessa Beecroft also positions herself as the author who in place of her 'objects' positions mostly female models. They stand as still as possible in front of the audience for hours while Beecroft herself doesn't physically participate in her performances. When she chooses female models who will participate, she elects according to the physical resemblance to herself [11], which puts her in the context of body art because she is positioning herself through others [12].
Forty years after Klein, with the experience of feminist art and the legitimization of the feminist discourse, Beecroft keeps an ambivalent position open to opposing interpretation. This is, I believe, in current western liberal world possible only because this artiss from the 1960's and 1970's, which have used their own bodies in their work and therefore positioned themselves as subjects and objects (the author and the representation) at the same time.
Even though I base my thesis on one of her performances in which she is deploying people of female gender, I have to stress the fact that she as well sets performances in which people of male gender are performing (military men who are holding their still position without a flaw). Only when taking these performances into consideration the exaggeration of gender stereotypes that is integral to her practice becomes obvious. Exaggeration of stereotypes, just as in the work of Yves Klein, can put these stereotypes into question and can be read as an ironic comment on the popular culture for instance. In her work she is dealing with popular media and fashion obsessively reproducing the unattainable ideals. The performances that come out of these preoccupations, especially performances that include a number of semi – naked and naked women instead of emanating pleasure they have a very aggressive impact. What could be seen as a pleasing image in the media, in real life induces discomfort for both male and female viewers. Beecroft is not positioning herself in the field of contemporary art as a genius but as media – pop star. She has undoubtedly attained this status, among other things; trough the high monetary value her works attain in the art market. She profits from this ambivalent position she has assumed. On one side she is creating art works – performances which exaggerate the stereotypes adopted from the media, but at same time she is working for the advertising industry of luxurious goods where she uses the same strategies as in her artistic work. These strategies, which in artistic work, because of the change of context, can be read as subversion, in advertising industry are indeed standard.

In the performance “Sculture vivente” (Living sculptures), the documentation I am using as one of the images I am reproducing, Piero Manzoni is signing live people and their body parts turning them into art works – sculptures. He is not signing only women, but historical selection has made the choice that signing of naked women would be documented and more accessible in the media and literature. Viewing Manzoni's body of work in opposition to Klein’s, it is visible that there is a tendency of putting oneself to ironic scrutiny as the artist genius. His 'objects' are not tools, they are 'works of art' and in the value system of the given time they were at least as valuable as the artist himself. Manzoni is putting to irony his own position as an artist and the possibility that was given to him to claim something an art piece (which is very close to Duchamp's position – exhibiting mundane objects as ready-mades and witnessing their inauguration as art) which is especially stressed in his work Merde d'artista (Artist’s shit) Manzoni seems as a figure of a ‘kynic’ [13] who questions everything including himself.

A particular comparison of these two artists considering their attitude towards material goods I found interesting as well. Yves Klein is selling in his work “Volumes de sensibilite picturale immaterielle” (Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility) his 'immaterial pictorial sensibility' in exchange for a gold leaf. The buyer gets the ownership certificate of this 'sensibility' but since it is something that 'can not be bought nor sold' he throws the gold leaf into the Seine and asks the buyer to burn the certificate. This way he affirms his work will stay in the spiritual realm. On the contrary, in his work “Merd d' artista” (Artsist's shit) Piero Manzoni, as in other similar works, sells his feces, his breath, or even people he is signing and therefore turning them into original artworks for an established monetary value which he then keeps afterwards. He is not positioning himself above mundane values of everyday life but he is putting it to irony without the aristocratic cynicism.

My thesis work is conceived as an approach to certain aspects of the works of these well-recognized artists who, as far as I know, were not used as basis of an analysis that would serve to question and compare works of the mentioned artists. Relationship to the other in one's own performances, even though mentioned in regard of these artists individually, has not motivated somebody to confront them on behalf of the mentioned stance. This is what I have tried to do through this text.

[1] In my work, comparing the works of Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni and Vanessa Beecroft, I have concentrated on works that do not exactly fit to this concept of body art.
[2] Amelia Jones: “Body Art / Performing the Subject” University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis / London 1998.
[3] According to Rene Decartes the subject or the 'I' is turning everybody else into objects of his gaze which has manifested in visual arts trough hiding of the artists body that granted him transcendence.
[4] According to Immanuel Kant: „The experience of beauty is based on disinterested judgment of forms of art work, not coming out of its content that is its ethical, political or patriotic idea. Form is what makes art being art. And on this field Kant has stressed the role of the creating subject.” Boris Kalin “Povijest filozofije” (History of Philosophy), Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 2003
[5] In 1950. Hans Namuth photographs, and later that year, records Pollock performing the act of painting on film.
[6] Amelia Jones: “Body Art / Performing the Subject”
[7] “The body artists of the late 1960s and early 1970s speak themselves and are spoken as their work; their actions open and even exacerbate the circuits of desire between the artistic subject (here as the work itself) and receptive subject that conditions and inflects the meanings determined for the work.“ Amelia Jones “Body Art / Performing the Subject”
[8] The artists I am referring to have evidently through their work or through the explanation of their work stated that they are referring to mentioned traditional mediums.
[9] “At my direction, the flesh itself applied the color to the surface, and with perfect exactness. I could continue to maintain a precise distance from my creation and still dominate its execution. In this way, I stayed clean. I no longer dirtied myself with colour, not even the tips of my fingers. The work finished itself there in front of me with the complete collaboration of the model. And I could salute its birth into the tangible world in a fitting manner, in evening dress.” Yves Klein from Amelia Jones “Body Art / Performing the Subject”
[10] “According to these views it is not peculiar that shape is compared to the traditional virtues of the male sex and the color with the seductiveness of the female sex. According to Charles Blanc: unification of line and color is necessary to create an image, just as unification of a man and a woman is inevitable to create mankind, but the line must keep its dominance over color as otherwise painting will be doomed because of color just as mankind perished because of Eve“ Rudolf Arnheim “Umetnost i vizualno opažanje” (Art and Visual Perception), Univerzitet umetnosti u Beogradu i Studentski kulturni centar, Beograd, 1998.
[11] “As I have suggested, narcissism – the exploration of and fixation on the self – inexorably leads to an exploration of and implication in the other: the self turns itself inside out, as it were, projecting its internal structures of identification and desire outward. Thus, narcissism interconnects the internal and external self as well as the self as other. (...) This is what Lacan, in a formulation that derives its theoretical force from
Linguistics and Freudian psychoanalysis but also from phenomenology, describes as the phenomenology of the transference by which the self is located in the other.“ Amelia Jones “Body Art Performing the Self”
[12] In a similar way Amelia Jones interprets the photographic document, the video recording, the body’s imprint in some material and bodily excerpts (as in case of Piero Manzoni) as Body art practices.
[13] “Greek philosophy of imprudence – kynicism: Diogenes has as a reaction to Platonic idealism made himself a medium of his teachings. His weapon is not as much analysis as it is ridicule (…) But when the ones in power start to think kynically – when they know the truth about them and 'proceed' regardless of what they know than they are completely fulfilling the modern definition of cynicism.” Peter Sloterdijk “Kritika ciničnog uma” (Critique of Cynical Reason), Globus nakladni zavod, Zagreb, 1992.

2009-01-07T23:21:00.026+01:00

(re)production

(Re)production is a performance piece in which I offer audience a copy of the poster with an appropriated photograph of a baby, printed in a large edition. With this work I am putting to irony the concept of art making as a site within which women cannot distinguish themselves for they are fully accomplished by giving birth to children. The work was initiated by the stance inscribed within some of the exam literature at the academy of fine arts where I read that 'women don't have the urge to create art because of their ability to bear children'; the statement many times said as a subtext but also many times rather directly. I wanted to stress the problem of education based primarily on old literature and challenge this discourse that prevailed during my studies.
I perform the conversation with the public whereby the thought process which led me to conceive (Re)production is discussed with willing visitors who are offered a poster carrying an image of a baby that is at the same time an art product, as emphasized with distribution trough cultural channels such as galleries, but symbolically the audience receives a new life as well.
As the appropriated photograph of a baby is an image of my partner as a child, I am assuming the role of a matrix - referring to the media of printmaking itself - trough which the image and the new life are metaphorically reproduced both an artwork and the child in one.
After the performance the posters stay inside the exhibition space as a form of installation/documentation of the past event but now they are covered with a transparent glass lid not to be taken by visitors themselves. It is possible trough agreement to get a copy of a poster by in this way provoking another performance.

2008/2009 performed, 2009 video 4’34”
public presentations/exhibitions: VN Gallery Zagreb, 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts Ljubljana, SC Gallery Zagreb, 5th Days of Graphic Arts Osijek, O3on Gallery Belgrade

2009-01-06T02:05:00.039+01:00

citati.plakate

Citati.plakate [artycok.tv interview] is a public project conducted during several months in 2007. It was started as personal examination of historical interpretations of categories of gender in the context of higher education and was aiming at fostering public debate on mostly overlooked harmful impact and perpetuating prejudice through education. Citati.plakate consists of a series of posters that contain short quotations* made by very well known authors from different fields such as physics, philosophy or letters and is focusing on the presence of misogyny in serious literature.

Citati.plakate was initiated as an anonymous intervention in the city through putting up posters inside the city structures. The posters were accompanied by the informative website that was stated on each poster. The first stage of the project has shortly after its ignition provoked reactions on the posters themselves, discussions on several internet forums as well as e-mail correspondence with those who have addressed the e-mail stated on the project website. The second stage has taken place after exhibiting the posters in the Booksa gallery - but this time not anonymously. Now the project has intrigued a number of formal media (TV, printed press).

2007 public project, 2011 gallery installation
posters in public space and a website, multimedia installation
public presentations/exhibitions: multiple locations in the city of Zagreb, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb

*Translation of the quotes on the posters:

Never trust a twinkle in a woman’s eye! That must be the light coming trough her hollow head. Nikola Tesla

When laws gave women equal rights, as to the humans (men), they should have given them the same reason. Arthur Schopenhauer

He has to comprehend a woman as possession, ownership that can be locked up,as something that is preordained for submission and in it becomes perfect. Friedrich Nietzsche

Dear lad, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. Oscar Wilde

Woman is a being that dresses, babbles and undresses. Voltaire

There is one good principle that created order, light and man; and one bad principle that created chaos, dark and woman. Pythagoras

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2009-01-02T21:46:00.066+01:00

born on 1st of January 1983 in Split, Croatia / lives and works in Zagreb and Ljubljana

work experience

2010/11 curator at the PM Gallery in Zagreb
2008/11 co-organized a theoretical reading group k.r.u.z.o.k
2009 co-curated a film program (with Elvis Krstulović) Spaces of Fear in the framework of the 7th Cultural Fair, MMC, Zagreb
2008/09. collaborated with a multimedia theater group the Shadow Casters from Zagreb
2007/08 Peggy Guggenheim internship program at Peggy Guggenheim Collection Venice

education

2010/11 curatorial program World of Art conducted by SCCA center in Ljubljana
2008/09 pilot program Curatorial Platform in Zagreb led by Ivana Bago, Antonija Majača, Ivana Meštrov and Klaudio Štefančić
2008 graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb
2008 attended a workshop by Dan Perjovschi at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts
2008 attended extra academic courses in gender studies, Center for Women Studies, Zagreb
2005 student exchange at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA
2001/02 studied art history at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka

exhibitions (selected)

2011 Remont Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia (upcoming solo show)
2011 XV Biennial of young artists from Europe and Mediterranean, (Croatian selection) Multimedia Cultural Center - MKC, Split (upcoming)
2011 The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, (with E. Krstulović), Melbourn
2011 XV Biennial of young artists from Europe and Mediterranean, Thessaloniki
2011 Darling, Sorry for Not Writing Earlier (with E. Krstulović), AKC Medika, Zagreb
2011 Volume collection, Multimedia Cultural Center - MKC, Split
2011 Volume collection, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art - MMSU, Rijeka
2011 O3on Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia
2011 T-HTnagrada@msu.hr, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb
2011 Fifth Days of Graphic Arts, Gallery of Fine Arts Osijek, Croatia
2010 SIZ Gallery in Nova Gallery, Nova Gallery, Zagreb
2010 Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow
2010 Recreation, SC Gallery, Zagreb (solo show)
2009 Labyrint 09 - Writings and Observations, Botkyrka Konsthall, Sweden
2009 28. Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana
2009 Am I That Name, SC gallery, Zagreb
2009 Distribution of Knowledge (with N.Tepavčević), FLU gallery, Belgrade (solo show)
2008 29th Youth Salon Zagreb - Salon of the Revolution, HDLU, Zagreb
2008 Under Construction [Staging the Future], in collaboration with SpRoUt Collective from UK, SC gallery, Zagreb
2008 (re)production, VN gallery, Zagreb (solo show)
2007 (seventh) Days of Croatian Performance, Croatian National Theater Varaždin
2006 4. Croatian Printmaking Triennial, Glyptotheque HAZU, Zagreb
2005 Ik love america, Miller Gallery, Indiana PA, USA (solo show)

public and web projects

2007 Citati.plakate.googlepages.com, a website and public posters in the town of Zagreb
2008 Distribution of Knowledge (with Nataša Tepavčević), conversations and interviews with Dan and Lia Perjovshi and Gülsun Karamustafa issued as a fanzine
2009 Art&Market (with E. Krstulović), a series of lecture performances and interviews published as newspapers and a website (http://www.stonenwater.org/iva_and_elvis/home.html), Anyang (Republic of Korea)

prize

2008 Recreation - best thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb in the year 2007/08 awarded by the independent jury of leading curators and professionals in Croatia

stipends & bursaries & residency

2009 Arts Council Korea bursary for SAP2009 residency program
2008 KulturKontakt Austria bursary for Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts
2007/08 stipend for Peggy Guggenheim internship program at Peggy Guggenheim Collection Venice
2005 University of Zagreb bursary for study at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA

workshops & festivals (selected)

2011 Curating as a Critical Practice, Museum of Contemporary Art, Novi Sad
2009 (re)production presented at Misplaced Women, SubRosa shift PSi#15, Zagreb
2008 Why are Women Like Chickens (participated in the SubRosa performance), City of Women, Ljubljana
2007 Ten Years of MMC, Performance Workshop by Ulay, MMC, Rijeka

2008-01-24T11:16:00.007+01:00

the kissing piece

This work was conceived in order to question a specific performance. Realized as an intervention made directly ‘on the work’ – in this case the performer’s body as she was performing - not in retrospect. Therefore it was a critical statement realized through artistic means which enabled me with an immediate response but at the same time I risked an unpredictable reaction.
To describe what the piece is about I have to focus on somebody else’s work first - the performance I intervened in: The performer stands still and quiet for half an hour, five days in a row, in a gallery space open to visitors, and the visitors are welcomed to interact with her as encouraged in the invitation. Thereby it is suggested that she is revealing herself to the public. Since the performance was done in a familiar environment (the gallery space inside the art academy) with only a few visitors, most of them being artist’s friends, I tried to provoke a shock and see how the performance would develop. I have asked the performer to allow me to create a work of mine by participating (as well as contributing to her participatory performance) to what she had agreed. I have kissed her as I was encouraged by the invitation, among other suggestions. My action was received as an assault and I was first denied right to publicly exhibit the piece (by the performer), and later we reached a compromise, by which I was allowed to exhibit but only under the terms of concealing her identity. In my opinion, the circumstances in which the performance was staged were at odds with a possibility of a significant interaction and this is what it was declaratively aiming at - opening to the public. The idea itself seemed intensely reminiscent of Marina Abramović’s Rthym 0 where Abramović exposed herself to the public, an action that has almost finished with severe consequences.
In body art and performance practices the work is not in what you see (one person standing) but in the whole series of events and opinions it is able to produce. I believe that just as my piece depended on hers so did her piece benefited from my intervention.

2005 performed, 2008 video 3'48''
public presentations/exhibitions: Miller Gallery, Indiana PA (USA), SC Gallery Zagreb, O3on Gallery Belgrade

2008-01-23T21:59:00.004+01:00

Interview/Statement

Zarez, Volume XII, No. 283, May 13, 2010.

KARLA PUDAR: This exhibition - "Recreation" is the result of your work over the last few years. Can you tell us a bit more about the works and their starting points? How and why did you get the idea to incorporate all the works, made independently from each other, into a common story through this exhibition?

IVA KOVAČ: The exhibition shows three works made during the last three years of my study which relate to my personal experience of studying, and were not made through the usual mentoring process but independently, or in spite of it.
"The Kissing Piece" is a critical intervention into someone else’s performance, which serves mainly for examining the ideas of the given work. Through this work I try to talk about the education system that is more successful in communicating the information on the formal aspects of work, while it can hardly cope with the understanding of ideas. "(Re)production" is the work that was initiated by the sentence I found in examination literature, saying: “Women don’t have the urge to create art because of their ability to bear children.” I negate this statement by giving out series of posters showing an image of a child and by having informal conversation with the audience about the motives of the work that, through the institutionalization in a gallery, I transform into an artwork. "Recreation", also my graduation project, is an extension of two previous works, but because of the context which it was made for it uses classical, painting media and text that, although can be interpreted as a standard interpretation of a graduation project, is integral and not added afterwards. Unlike the first two works in which I create a work through my own presence (I perform), here I comment on performance as a theme, i.e. one of its specificities. In visual arts performance, more precisely body-art, is often performed by a person who is also conceptualizing it and it is defined as a medium which emancipated different subjects by taking on a double role; in the role of the author a person stands out as a subject (of the work), but at the same time, for the audience, s/he is an object (of the gaze). The unveiling of the author’s body sparks a discussion about who can and under which conditions participate in the field of high art. I choose three performances in which authors, due to various reasons, use others as performers, in that way preserving the characteristic of traditional media they objectify, although on other grounds they position themselves against the same media.

K.P: “Recreation” is your graduation project in which you deal with body-art, i.e. artists who use other people as objects in their performances with whom they do not share the authorship. Was it not that your relation towards the colleague in the performance “The Kissing Piece” was of similar nature?

I.K: "The Kissing Piece" manifests itself as a relation of two equal authorial personae and as a result two works emerge. Our interrelationship was tense during the performance because the intervention was not merely of a symbolic nature. But, I verbally requested and got the permission to see this intervention as my own work, and I intervened in accordance with the call for participation performance. In performances by Vanessa Beecroft, Piero Manzoni and Yves Klein the authors pay the employees who perform and therefore participants are not on an equal level from the start; some are labourers the others are employers. But the problem you’re mentioning in your question was a direct cause for my dealing with the ethical and in a way, through "Recreation", I also deal with my own personal dilemmas.

K.P: The majority of your works, such as “(Re)production” or the work „Citati.plakate.googlepages.com”, which is not displayed at the exhibition but can be seen on your website, in which you intervened into the public advertising space by incorporating the statements of great thinkers, carries a strong social message and opens up the space for discussion – do you find your works to be socially engaged?

I.K: "Citati.plakate.googlepages.com" I find to be a socially engaged work because it was designed to provoke a reaction and interest from the public, what happened in a way through various Internet forums, daily newspapers, etc. But, in continuation of my work on a similar project I would rather collaborate with organizations dedicated specifically to social engagement that have infrastructure through which they can transfer the discussion from an artistic to a wider social context. I think the position of an artist who starts to be artistically recognized for his/her artistic-social engagement is very confusing, because being artistically recognized, although it is not in opposition with the social efficiency of the work, is definitely not conditioned by it. Wider public primarily perceives art as a decoration or a status symbol, what also partly goes for conceptual practices, and such discrepancies in perception make it harder to achieve the 'real social impact'.
I do not find "(Re)production" to be socially engaged but a conceptual work in which I oppose two major and several minor theses and use myself and my potential social roles as grounds for discussion. This is a project that, in order to be efficient, requires institutionalization. I think I can call my works socially conscious.

K.P: Do you think that art should be more aggressive in its attempts to get out in the street, in order for artistic interventions in public spaces to reach the viewers easier and in a better way, and that institutions are often slow considering the immediacy and efficiency?

I.K: The mere act of art getting out in the street does not make art closer to the wider audience – indeed the effect is often the opposite. Only by institutionalization of such practices do the wider social strata start to accept public interventions as legitimate artistic practices to a greater extent. But visual arts as such are not effective by themselves but are always interpreted regarding the artistic context, regardless of whether they are placed inside or outside an art institution. Also, the tradition of public artistic interventions is getting ever more longer, and more and more world cities 'brand' themselves through public art projects. The choice of place for the realization of a work depends upon the type of artwork and its goal, and whether the public space of the street or (also public) space of the gallery suits it better. I would like to stress here that the street is not the only public space in which one can intervene without the previous consent of art institutions – in that sense the Internet is a new potential space of action that, as time goes by, reaches wider and wider audience.

K.P: You often refer to the position of the woman in your work. As an artist of a younger generation – what do you think about the position of women in art today and do you see yourself as a feminist artist?

I.K: I think that artistic occupation itself is a source of many problems my colleagues and I face, and gender-oriented chauvinism is not a characteristic of the artistic niche I am a part of. However, the experience largely depends upon the context one finds themselves in and the worldview that was 'imposed' upon him/her or is 'innate' to him/her. In many contexts (local, as in international ones) the issue of equality has never ceased to be existent.
I do not see myself as a feminist artist, but I see myself as a feminist. The 'Letter' I use is the letter drawing upon the tradition of conceptual art, the letter that uses various strategies such as subversion, irony, antithesis, in order to achieve a specific effect. That is a language some female artists, as well as some male artists, used to warn about the gender inequality. Écriture féminine ("women's writing") is a notion that looks for the specific common traits among female authors that transcend all the other circumstances in which a work is created. Also, women’s writing implicates inferiority in relation to the norm that is not called male’s writing but art. And from all of the above one can tell I am not a fan of such divisions.

K.P: In your work “The Kissing Piece” you intervened into another artist’s work, precisely your colleague’s performance, and in the video you blurred her face – what is your position on censorship in art and what is your experience regarding it?

I.K: In "The Kissing Piece" I consented to censorship in agreement with the person whose work I intervened into. Since I do not criticize the person but the specific approach, censorship does not affect the understanding of my intervention. I never had such experiences with institutional censorship.

K.P: The unavoidable part of “Recreation” is the accompanying text, as well as in some other of your works the textual part is essential and, it seems to me, the basic generator of the story – how would you comment on that?

I.K: Verbalizing the idea is an integral part of my work. I think that the first interpretation should be my own, but it does not exclude the possibility of criticism, discussion, review, etc. But since I create art consciously and with a specific idea in mind I think that a person reviewing it should be aware of that. Circumstances caused the situation where I started to write my own texts about the works, but I also embraced it wholeheartedly. Besides, I am attracted to writing regardless of whether it is connected with my own artistic work.

K.P: In the graduation project you were actually “copying” the previous artworks. What is your attitude toward citation, i.e. toward the relation quote – plagiarism, especially considering the recent residence program in Asia where the relation toward “originality” is considerably different from the one in the West?

I.K: In "Recreation" I used visual documentation available in books and on the Internet and transferred it to a context different from the one in which works were originally created. From the perspective of conceptual art I did not violate any norm because the notion of originality itself is under the question mark. But the way art defines itself and the way it is defined from the outside of the artistic context is not always consistent. In a court trial in which Art Rogers sued Jeff Koons for plagiarism, because Koons created a sculpture based on the motif from a postcard, Rogers won and got huge monetary damages what was later followed by many similar lawsuits. This case comes from the disagreement of the art system with the majority of commercial and legal systems, additionally emphasized by the fact that art still participates in commercial endeavours, only under different rules from the majority of other goods. I am interested in such disagreements, the same ones we deal with in "Art&Market", realized in collaboration with Elvis Krstulović during the artist residence program in the Republic of Korea. But since we did not specifically thematize the methods of appropriating and citation, we did not come across the Asian view on originality.

K.P: You spent three months in the artist residence program in the Republic of Korea, can you tell us something more about the experience, about the project you started with Elvis Krstulović and was that your first experience of working together?

I.K: "Art&Market" was not our first experience of working together, our first collaboration was on "Kkkkkraj" performance, but it primarily dealt with the possibility of collaboration. In Korea we worked on a common project that, in a wider sense, dealt with the position of art regarding money, that is, the power. In a more narrow sense we dealt with two topics.
First topic was related to the issue of intangible art and its positioning within the art market. As examples we used three different contracts written in three different socio-economical systems (i.e. systems with different ways of financing art) which sought for the ways of regulation transactions of contemporary/conceptual/neo-avant-garde art within the social systems they exist in. First example was the contract drawn by Seth Siegelaub, an American gallerists and curator who was a great promoter of conceptual art at the time when there was no market for it, and he wanted to define the specific percentage the artist would get in case the value of the work increases in secondary, tertiary, etc. sale of the work. Daniel Buren, a French conceptual artist, draws a contract by which he alone has the moral rights over his works and all the future owners are obliged to consult the artist about displaying, sale, etc. The contract of Sanja Iveković and Dalibor Martinis was drawn under different conditions. They claim that, although in Yugoslavian socialist system art is not generally defined as a material good, exhibition is treated as a place of promotion for a future sale, although numerous contemporary art works cannot be sold. They propose giving fee for exhibitions as a form of public (cultural) activity.
Second theme we dealt with came as a reaction to our experience in Korea where urban and urbanistic processes are intense and the location of the residence was destined for urban transformation – meaning tearing down and building new business-residential complexes of the approximate size of Zagreb centre. As participants of the residence we were invited to problematize the temporariness or disappearance of that space, but we were more interested in the role of art in such processes. What is normal for such megalomaniac projects is that they often incorporate public artworks, as it was the case with the given project of reconstruction, while at the same time no one was concerned about the local population. We dedicated to this aspect in two ways, on the one hand we explored the problem theoretically and on the examples of the USA and Western Europe while, on the other hand, we interviewed and had discussions with several managers of Korean alternative spaces and in that way got information about their specific experiences of dealing with these problems – in Korea. The final work did not try to practically deal with the given problem because the short duration of our stay and limited understanding of the context were great obstacles to any attempt of a more direct action. After the research we held a public lecture and initiated later discussions so in the end we published all the materials on the Internet in a form of a website and newspapers. Through this project we also tried to mention various aspects of engaged practices taking place in public spaces and for us the project was very educative, from literature as well as from conversations and discussions.

K.P: Work "Art&Market" fits perfectly the current situation in Zagreb scene, where the ongoing Zagreb Salon titled Tržište / Market, and the upcoming Salon of the Youth deal with similar issues. What is your stand on the art market in Croatia, are your works a part of any bigger collection and what (would) that mean(s) to you as an artist?

I.K: Most artist in Croatia do not make a living entirely from sales of their works what in a sense makes us amateurs if amateurism defines an occupation you do not make a living of. In that sense neither does the recognition from the profession enable everyday existence, but it does, for example, make it easier to find a job within similar professions, and in that way we train for various other more profitable professions, such as design, curatorial work, writing, teaching, etc. depending on the interests and opportunities. There is also a whole system of awards, scholarships, etc. that enables travels to far away or bit closer countries.
The name of the work "Art&Market" does not come from the focus on the art market, because, as I already said, market is not the only form of financing the arts, but we used the double meaning of the word market (market and marketplace) because the residence program took place in a traditional Korean marketplace threatened by eviction because of the much stronger market mechanisms.
My works are not a part of a larger art collection. The work "Recreation" won a corporative award of Croatia Osiguranje (Croatia Insurance) as the best graduation project of the academic year 2007/08, and despite the fact that there was no mention of buying up, that the final amount of money transferred to my account was half the amount agreed in the contract and that no one from Croatia Insurance, despite my attempts, wanted to talk to me about the problem, but there was a verbal request that I should hand in my works unquestioningly to the Academy, what I did not do in the end. Elvis’s works have been bought by Erste Bank, while both of us have our works in smaller private collections.

K.P: And finally, tell us about your following project.

I.K: What follows is the continuation of work on "Art&Market" within Moscow Biennale of Young Art this July, where we will organize two public discussions in extended form. Besides, we are currently occupied by designing and structuring our future team work, namely the reassignment of work. We are interested in this issue in terms of efficiency, but we are also intrigued to see how will it affect the production itself. Joint production in which each of us participates in every aspect of the work is pretty similar to individual production, and that is something we find less interesting lately. We are also considering the option to stop individual productions completely.