Interview with Branka Stipančić (Group of Aix Artists)

Biography: 

Branka Stipančić, curator and critic in the field of art and the first director and curator of the Center for Contemporary Art Zagreb (SCCA - Zagreb, 1993-1997) and one of the founders of the SCCA network in Amsterdam.

In the late 1970s (1975-1981), the 'Group of Six Artists' (Boris Demur, Željko Jerman, Vlado Martek, Mladen Stilinović, Sven Stilinović and Fedor Vučemilović) began exhibiting in open air spaces in an attempt to circumvent the traps set by art institutions. The young artists displayed their work on sunbathing boards and on the grass between the bathers on the bank of the river Sava (in Zagreb), they projected slides and films on to buildings, exhibited on city squares, in the streets, in universities in Zagreb, on the sea shore of Moščenička Draga, in Belgrade, Venice and elsewhere. They called their shows “exhibition-actions” because, alongside some finished works, most of the work and actions were created on site and in response to the situation. They acted spontaneously, as a loose association of artists who expressed their ideas in works that often challenged the established ethic and aesthetic order and sought to subvert the society in which they lived.

Branka Stipančić, curator and critic in the field of art
Summary: 

Interview with Branka Stipančić (Group of Aix Artists), Zagreb, December 2017

 

Branka Stipančić, curator and critic in the field of art and the first director and curator of the Center for Contemporary Art Zagreb (SCCA - Zagreb, 1993-1997) and one of the founders of the SCCA network in Amsterdam.

In the late 1970s (1975-1981), the 'Group of Six Artists' (Boris Demur, Željko Jerman, Vlado Martek, Mladen Stilinović, Sven Stilinović and Fedor Vučemilović) began exhibiting in open air spaces in an attempt to circumvent the traps set by art institutions. The young artists displayed their work on sunbathing boards and on the grass between the bathers on the bank of the river Sava (in Zagreb), they projected slides and films on to buildings, exhibited on city squares, in the streets, in universities in Zagreb, on the sea shore of Moščenička Draga, in Belgrade, Venice and elsewhere. They called their shows “exhibition-actions” because, alongside some finished works, most of the work and actions were created on site and in response to the situation. They acted spontaneously, as a loose association of artists who expressed their ideas in works that often challenged the established ethic and aesthetic order and sought to subvert the society in which they lived.

BRANKA STIPANČIĆ: GROUP OF SIX ARTISTS AND A TALK WITH MLADEN STILINOVIĆEM, The lecture and the talk in Croatian are part of the Politicization of Friendship exhibition program (MG+MSUM)

 

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).