23 Mar 2009

Igor Grubic: 366 liberation rituals

The exhibition at Galerija Miroslav Kraljević is the final phase of Igor Grubic's project '366 liberation rituals', commissioned by G-MK and developed over the course of 2008 as a series of micro-political actions and interventions performed by the artist almost on a daily basis. The 'rituals' function as a set of oppositional signals in the public space and are closely correlated in their attempt to provoke and confront the existing condition by infiltrating visual viruses in the preexisting order of things.

The artist here assumes the role of a 'lonesome revolutionary' who, first of all, fights against the potential of his own tranquilization and defeatism. Alternating from radical and illegal interventions in public space (interventions on public monuments, colouring the water of a public fountain into red, etc.) to silent and almost invisible infiltrations into the hegemonic systems (marking the money bills with agitating messages, intervening and transforming the content of grafitti with nationalist and neofascist slogans) to entirely private rituals in which the artist's 'intervention' is directed onto himself - Grubic explores the borderline between poetical and political. The tactics he uses seem to challenge the asymmetry of public and private, personal and political, thus evoking the practices of historical conceptualism by reinforcing the individual, direct actions.

The exhibition will be followed by a publication documenting the project, with introductory texts by Sezgin Boynik and the exhibition curators Ivana Bago & Antonia Majaca.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Since 1996, Igor Grubic (b. 1969, Zagreb, HR) has mainly produced site-specific interventions in public spaces, with the aim of involving others in the creative process. His most famous public intervention is Black Perystil performed in Split in 1998. He has exhibited his work widely - a selection of group exhibitions includes Be A Happy Worker: Work-To-Rule, Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic (2008, Zagreb), Bad Joke, (2007, Tallin), October. Exit, Desire and Memory, Artra Gallery, (2007, Milano), Revolution is not a garden party, Trafo Gallery (2006, Budapest), Side-effects, Museum of Contemporary Art (2006, Belgrade), Looking Awry, Apexart Gallery, (2003, New York), Imaginary Balkans, Site Gallery (2002, Sheffield), Manifesta 4, (2002, Frankfurt), What, how and for whom, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, (2001, Vienna), etc.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The project and exhibition '366 liberation rituals' is part of the collaborative project Land of Human Rights by < rotor > association for contemporary art/ Graz, University of J.E. Purkyne/ Usti nad Labem, riesa efau | Motorenhalle/ Dresden, Trafo Gallery/ Budapest, Galerija Skuc/ Ljubljana, g - mk | galerija miroslav kraljevic/ Zagreb.

www.landofhumanrights.eu
With the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Program of Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic is supported by: City of Zagreb - City Office for Education, Culture and Sport, Ministry of Culture - Croatia, INA Ltd.