VIDEOART IN CROATIA
Video-Instalations in Croatia
(1973-1998)
Video art in Croatia was highly synchronized
with the world evolution of video art. However, it was
characteristic for Croatian situation that the first video
artists came from art scene, Art Academy in Zagreb, and
not from film avant-garde tradition. That was the reason
why video-installations, having a model in Nam June Paik
activity, have become an inherent part of the artistic
activity of those artists that made video art the focus
of their art work — Dalibor Martinis and Sanja Iveković.
As early as in 1974 Martinis exhibited his first video-installation Still
Life: a TV set with the program going on on a piece
of furniture covered with a red fabric, with an arranged
set of an antic sculpture, a burning candle and a fruit
basket — mildly ironizing bourgeois taste. This dualism
between the »text« and »context« has become the main preoccupation
of Dalibor Martinis. Sanja Iveković, besides doing video
works, did a series of performances dealing often with
issues of female situation.
The two dominated video-installation
scene throughout the eighties, but the beginning of the
nineties brought in not only war, but also the change in
video-installation scene. Video-installations by Martinis,
Iveković and some new authors like Ivan Faktor, Simon B.
Narath, Zlatko Kopljar, Davor Mezak, Vlado Zrnić have shown
indirect impact of the war. But the nineties, also, witnessed
the proliferation of video-installation exhibitions and
video-installation authors. Besides the names already mentioned
that continued to work throughout the nineties, some new
names appeared: Darko Fritz, Kristina Leko-Fritz, Sandro
Đ ukić, Krešimir Farkaš, Wladimir Frelih, Zoran Pavelić,
Toni Meštrović, Sandra Sterle, Dan Oki, Renata Poljak,
Andreja Kulunčić, Marin Zorić — Zorge, Ivan Marušić Klif,
Ivo Deković. Their individual installations are described,
and their work interpreted. The paper contains the extensive
bibliography on video art and video-installations in general
as well as on individual artists.
Aleksandra Orlić |
