VIDEOART IN CROATIA

The Generation of Difference — New Videoart in Croatia

The event that marked the noticeable change in the state of the art of Croatian video art was the compilation of recent video works dubbed Reference to Difference in the mid-nineties. The program, put on a tape, was made by representatives of a new generation of video artists by themselves, and it expressed their need to mark out their position on the video scene. The tape contained the works of Vladislav Knežević, the initiator and organizer of the program, Igor Kuduz, Davor Mezak, Simon B. Narath, Vlado Zrnić and Milan Bukovac. The program neither covered all representative authors of the generation, nor was it stylistically homogeneous.

The authors differed by their age, their background, and their orientations. What marked them out was the explicate emphasis on their difference, their variety. This emphasis was especially important in regard to the previous state of video art that was strongly marked by the predominance of the pioneering video authors Sanja Iveković and Dalibor Martinis. It was significant that the work of these two authors was omitted from the program, though they have been artistically active during the nineties too, and they were part of every representative program of Croatian video art up to the point.

However, they were not omitted because the new generation denied them their status, on the contrary — they were praised by the new generation, but they were assigned to their well-deserved position of video-art classics that stood apart from the current struggles of the new generation. The program enlivened the interest in video art among young art critics and gave a context for other incoming young video-makers. However, it is characteristic that the program was not initiated by some art institution but by the artists themselves. Though numerous institutions are hectically involved in exhibition and promotion of video art and video-installations, there does not exist a dedicated and permanent institutional support of video work.

What exists do exist mostly due to non-institutional initiatives, which are only occasionally »put into use« by state-supported art institutions. For example, the video-installation by Dalibor Martinis Observatorium did represent the Republic of Croatia at Venice Bienalle, 1997, as well as some others. The spread of video art has its own momentum, though endangered by the lack of support. Many video authors have to support themselves by other kind of work, (e.g. doing music clips like V. Knežević and S. B. Narath, working as a graphic designer like I. Kuduz, as a TV cinematographer like M. Bukovac, etc.) often delaying their artistic work pressed by other obligations. Nevertheless, in spite of the situation, reviewing the present day state-of-the-art in video is much more demanding than it was, for example, five years ago. At that time all programs of recent Croatian video works circled the same names and the same tapes — now it is possible to compile several varied programs of recent video art, and it is impossible to represent all important authors and styles within any single program.

The rest of the article presents this contemporary situation with varied styles and relatively numerous artists by analyzing individual contributions of new authors.

Janka Vukmir