Art organization: interview with Marko Pogačnik (OHO group), Ljubljana, October 2018.

Biography: 

Marko Pogačnik, artist, founder of the movement and art group OHO, Kranj-Ljubljana, after which the initiator of the transformation of this group into a new artistic initiative Družina v Šempasu (Družina v Šempasu), is today an active research artist in the international network.

The OHO Group, a Slovene art collective active from 1966-1971 in Ljubljana. Members included Marko Pogačnik, Iztok Geister Plamen, Marjana Ciglič, Milenko Matanović, Andraž Šalamun, Tomaž Šalamun, David Nez, Matjaž Hanšek, Naško Križnar, Vojin Kovač Chubby, Aleš Kermavner, Franci Zagoričnik, Marika Pogačnik, Zvona Ciglič, Nuša and Srečo Dragan, a.o.

The members of the OHO group developed various strategies and approaches that they first called “reism,” a type of arte povera, land art and body art, processual and conceptual art. They aspired to “liberate” situations and objects and present them to the public outside of their fixed functions. The term “Oho” refers to the observation of forms (with the eye, “oko”, and ear, “uho”) in their immediate presence, and is also an exclamation of astonishment, said Marko Pogačnik, the group’s leader: “Because when we uncover the essence of a thing, that is when we exclaim ‘oho’.” A specific approach toward objects, a distancing from the weight of meaning, is apparent in Edicija Oho (Oho Edition), where literature and visual art are reduced to objectivity. Artists such as Pogačnik, Geister, Hanžek, Matanović, Dreja and others created their “books” by printing objects, drawings and sentences on single pages placed in small boxes. These books are objects, with their pages being various forms that can be handled, jumbled letters that must be arranged to form a sentence. A book should be heard, looked through. It is an “open work,” one which, demonstrating “reistic” tautology, suggests a game.

Marko Pogačnik, artist, founder of the OHO movement and art group
Summary: 

Art organization: interview with Marko Pogačnik (OHO group), Ljubljana, October 2018.

 

 

Marko Pogačnik umetnik, osnivač pokreta i umetničke grupe OHO, Kranj-Ljubljana, nakon toga inicijator transformacije ove grupe u novu umetničku inicijativu Družina u Šempasu (Družina v Šempasu), danas je umetnik istraživač aktivan u internacionalnoj mreži.

The OHO Group, a Slovene art collective active from 1966-1971 in Ljubljana. Members included Marko Pogačnik, Iztok Geister Plamen, Marjana Ciglič, Milenko Matanović, Andraž Šalamun, Tomaž Šalamun, David Nez, Matjaž Hanšek, Naško Križnar, Vojin Kovač Chubby, Aleš Kermavner, Franci Zagoričnik, Marika Pogačnik, Zvona Ciglič, Nuša and Srečo Dragan, a.o.

The members of the OHO group developed various strategies and approaches that they first called “reism,” a type of arte povera, land art and body art, processual and conceptual art. They aspired to “liberate” situations and objects and present them to the public outside of their fixed functions. The term “Oho” refers to the observation of forms (with the eye, “oko”, and ear, “uho”) in their immediate presence, and is also an exclamation of astonishment, said Marko Pogačnik, the group’s leader: “Because when we uncover the essence of a thing, that is when we exclaim ‘oho’.” A specific approach toward objects, a distancing from the weight of meaning, is apparent in Edicija Oho (Oho Edition), where literature and visual art are reduced to objectivity. Artists such as Pogačnik, Geister, Hanžek, Matanović, Dreja and others created their “books” by printing objects, drawings and sentences on single pages placed in small boxes. These books are objects, with their pages being various forms that can be handled, jumbled letters that must be arranged to form a sentence. A book should be heard, looked through. It is an “open work,” one which, demonstrating “reistic” tautology, suggests a game.

 

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

Art Organisation analyses the phenomenon of artistic (self)organisation and relations within artistic groups and collectives in the post-Yugoslav region during the last fifty years, and the ways it influenced the profile and quality of their artistic production. Research within the project Art Organisation is aimed at group and collective processes of creation and internal dynamics between artists and other participants in them. The focus is on self-organised initiatives outside the framework of official institutions. Through the phenomena of self-organisation, the project questions the role of civil society organisations as potential progressive places in society through dealing with art.

The introduction to the research of group work, joint authorship, working conditions, was conducted during 2017 through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia, and continued during 2018/2019. The research team is composed of members of kuda.org with associates from Belgrade, theoreticians and art historians Milica Pekić and Stevan Vuković and Ana Peraica from Split. During 2019, the interviewed were collectives and groups in the field of contemporary art, theoreticians and art historians, and protagonist artists who realized their practice through group art work.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).