Art as Practice

How art is made, what an artwork is, and how artists act changed radically with the advent of conceptual art in the 1960s. The artist’s interest moved away from the idea of a traditional artwork as a finished object imbued with certain aesthetic qualities towards the idea behind the artwork. The concept outweighed the form the object produced might have, and any means available, even the most modest of them, were seen as appropriate to realize it. Rather than being object-based, art making became process-based. As the working activities artists practiced took primacy over the objects, art itself came to be understood as a practice. Thus, various related events and developments in Yugoslavian art from 1966 to 1978 were termed New Art Practice. As they became engaged in the practice, artists came to question the social reasons and conditions related to their work, the reasons behind the creation of their artworks, the distribution channels and the art system as a whole. And, well beyond all that, they critically investigated the cultural, political and economic conditions of society. To this end they developed new modes of expression, and new media entered the art field – performance, photography, video, installations, actions and interventions in urban space. Continuing with this line into the present day, yet duly transformed according to changed social, political, cultural, economic and technological conditions, artists whose work is actively engaged with the social sphere developed a new set of artistic practices, integrating in them all the new media available to them and expanding the art field to include other disciplines and often acting as catalysts for positive social change. Four artists and four artworks before you demonstrate these practices in different times and places.

• 

  André Cadere

  Without Title / Bez naziva, 1973
  

  b/w film, sound, 3’

  Cinematographer: Alain Fleischer

  Produced by Ida Biard – Le Galerie des Locataires, Paris

  © MSU

• 

  Željko Jerman

  My Year / Moja godina, 1977
  

  January 1st – December 31st / 1. 1. 1977  –  31. 12.  1977

  b/w photographs,

  felt-tip pen text / paper

  365 x (29.7 x 21) cm

  © MSU

• 

  Goran Trbuljak

  I Don’t Want to Show Anything New or Original / Ne želim pokazati ništa novo i originalno, 1971
  

  silkscreen / paper

  © MSU

• 

  Goran Trbuljak

  The Fact that somebody is given the Opportunity to Stage an Exhibition is More Important Than What is Shown at That Exhibition / Činjenica da je nekom dana mogućnost da napravi izložbu važnija je od onoga što će na toj izložbi biti pokazano, 1973
  

  silkscreen / paper

  69.2 x 49.7 cm

  © MSU

• 

  Goran Trbuljak

  With this Exhibition I Maintain Continuity in My Work / Ovom izložbom održavam kontinuitet u svom radu, 1979
  

  silkscreen / paper

  40.9 x 59.1 cm

  © MSU

• 

  Andreja Kulunčić

  Embryo – Closed Reality / Zatvorena zbilja - embrio, 1999-2000
  

  Collaborators: Trudy Lane, Gabrijela Sabol, Matija Pužar, Ivo Martinović

  Multidisciplinary art project

  Website (http://embryo.inet.hr) and installation

  12 graphs (digital print / paper 59 x 42 cm)
  12 VHS video cassettes
  Material produced during the first 6 months of the project (11 bindings, computer print-out and Xerox copies / paper)
  CD ROM
  Documentation of the project with three invited participations2 VHS cassettes, 1 bound printout)
  Project catalogue
  Press clipping of the project (bound)
  CD and DVD disc (master folder storage)

  © MSU