Biographies
association APSOLUTNO (FYR/Serbia).
Founded in 1993 in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. The production of the association is created through collaboration of its four members, Zoran Pantelic, Dragan Rakic, Bojana Petric and Dragan Miletic. APSOLUTNO started in the field of fine arts and gradually extended to incorporate not only artistic but also cultural, social, and political aspects. The work of APSOLUTNO is based on an interdisciplinary research into reality with the aim to make it open to new readings.
Zdenka Badovinac (b.1958, FYR/Slovenia)
Director of the Moderna Galerija Ljubljana. Critic, theorist, curator.
Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975. Russia).
Born into a revolutionary Russia and the single-voiced address of authoritarian regimes, Bakhtin was victimized more than once under Stalin's frequent purges against artists and intellectuals. He was sent into exile in Siberia and then Kazakhstan. This fact alone no doubt informed much of his central trope, dialogue, since the language of revolution is essentially monologic. He spawned many admirers who created the Bakhtin circle. Essential to our understanding and approach to Bakhtin lies in his philosophy, and that often it is difficult to tell what he wrote and what was written in his name by the Bakhtin Circle members.
Aleksandar Battista Ilić (b.1965. FYR/Croatia).
Initiated the 10-year performance project Weekend Art: Hallelujah the Hill with in collaboration with Ivana Keser and Tomislav Gotovac. Multidisciplinary artist, cultural activist, and is, along with Ivana Keser, the initiator of Community Art; Project leadership of Zagreb – Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000.
Nenad Bogdanovic (b. 1955, FYR/Serbia).
In 1993 Nenad Bogdanovic began a body of work titled Man Gallery that protested against the commodification of art and the privileging of the object over human experience. He engaged with the effects of conflict and cultural embargos set against Serbia by declaring his body to be a site for the production and display of art. He organizes the annual IMAF Performance Art Festival and is Director of MAS Gallery. Between 1984-88 he published the Mail Art magazines 'Total' and 'Second Manifesto'. He represented Serbia at the Venice Biennial in 2003.
Irina Botea (b. 1970, Romania).
Graduated in Bucharest and Boston with double MFA in Fine Art. Represented Romania at the Venice Biennial in 2005.
Kollektivnye Deistvia (Collective Actions) (Russia).
Formed in Moscow in the early 1970s they have become, along with Ilya Kabakov, the leading exponents of the Moscow Conceptualist movement.
Boris Groys (b.1947, East Germany).
Philosopher, essayist, art critic, media theorist, and an internationally acclaimed expert on late-Soviet postmodern art and literature, as well as on the Russian avant-garde. His writings engage the wildly disparate traditions of French poststructuralism and modern Russian philosophy. He is author of an influential body of essays and books, including, 'The Total Art of Stalin' (Princeton, 1992). His work is credited with introducing Western readers to Russian postmodernist writers. In the 1970's, while living in Russia, he coined the term 'Moscow conceptualism'.
Marina Gržinić (b.1958, FYR/Slovenia).
Media theorist and curator. Has published five books and numerous articles. Among her books are, 'Fiction Reconstructed: Eastern Europe, Post-Socialism and the Retro-Avant-Garde' (Edition Selene, 2000).
Ilya Kabakov (b.1933, Ukraine).
Kabakov was a member of the official Union of Soviet Artists, and employed as an illustrator of children's books. He worked in his official role for half the year and spent the remaining six months producing his own non-official works. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest living artists, and has completed hundreds of installations. All his work can really only be understood with knowledge of the Communist context as it is, in fact, a narrative of those times.
Irwin (FYR/Slovenia).
Creators of 'East Art Map' and members of NSK. It was Irwin who propelled NSK into collaborations with national armies.
Barbora Klímová (b. 1977, Brno, Czech Republic).
Recipient of the Jindrich Chalupecký award for emerging critical talent.
Komar and Melamid (b. 1943 and 1945, Moscow, Russia).
Credited with founding the Sots Art movement in Russia, Komar & Melamid met while art students in Moscow. From an early stage in their collaboration they were subject to official bans and surveillance, having attracted attention for appropriating Communist propaganda and ideology as a readymade. They became US citizens in 1978.
Bojana Kunst (FYR/Slovenia).
Philosopher and performance theoretician, and a member of the editorial board of Maska Magazine and Performance Research. Her essays have been published widely, and her books include, 'Impossible Body' (Ljubljana 1999) and 'Dangerous Connections: Body, Philosophy and Relation to the Artificial' (Ljubljana, 2004).
Čzeslovac Lukensas (b. 1959, Lithuania).
Artist, writer, organizer. Outspoken critic of both the old and new political reality.
Karel Miler (b.1940. Czechoslovakia).
Leading performance artist in the non-official Czechoslovakian art movement.
NSK (FYR/Slovenia).
NSK collective is made up of Irwin, Laibach, New Collectivism, and Noordung.
Bojana Pejić (FYR/Serbia).
Previously the curator of the Belgrade Student Cultural Centre (SKC) and the editor of the art theory journal MOMENT. She was co-curator of the 1999-2001 exhibition "After the Wall. Art and Culture in post-Communist Europe".
Piotr Piotrowski (b.1952, Poland).
Chair of Modern Art History at the Art History Department, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland. Highly awarded author of numerous books and texts He has advised and co-organized a number of exhibitions and projects including: ‘2000+: The Art from Eastern Europe in Dialogue with the West’ (Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, 2000) and ‘The Central European Avant-Gardes: Exchange and Transformation, 1910–1930’ (LACMA, Los Angeles, 2001). Piotrowski has stated that "to organize an exhibition is to write the history of art."
Tomáš Ruller (b.1957, Czechoslovakia).
Before 1989 was active in the non-official art movement in Czechoslovakia. Since 1989 has presented extensively on the international stage. Recipient of a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Heads the Intermedia Department at Brno Academy of Art.
Anri Sala (b. 1974, Albania).
Gained immediate success on graduating from Film Studies in Paris with his work Intervista. Recipient of numerous awards and grants. Represented Albania at the 1999, 2001, and 2003, Venice Biennial’s.
Monika Sosnowska (b. 1972, Poland).
Sosnowska belongs to the generation who first graduated form art school under the new democratic system. She found immediate success and has since exhibited in many of the major galleries worldwide. She represented Poland at the 2003 Venice Biennial.
Balint Szombathy (b. 1950, FYR/Hungary).
A founding member (1968) of influential Yugoslav group Bosch+Bosch, Balint Szombathy helped advance the idea of art-as-practice, devised theoretical models of urbanity, and was active both in the Mail Art and Body Art movements. He has created and contextualised many unique performances, and written essays on art as well as the disintegration of Yugoslavia. A monograph study of his work was published in 2006.
Ive Tabar (FYR/Slovenia).
Tabar works as a nurse in the intensive care department of his local hospital where he constantly faces situations bordering between life and death. This informs his practice in place of any formal art training.
Raši Todosijević (b. 1945, FYR/Serbia).
Leading member of the Belgrade non-official art movement and internationally recognized avant-gardist. From his seminal actions in the 1970's 'Was ist Kunst?', texts on art, 'Edinburgh Statement - Who Profits from Art, and Who Gains From it Honestly?' (1975), and through the Installation series 'Gott Liebt die Serben' (God Loves the Serbs) of the 1980's and 1990's Rasa Todosijevic has consistently challenged the role and responsibility of art and artist, offering existence as both context and material to juxtapose authoritarian language and nationalisms.
Jerzy Truszkowski (b. 1961, Poland).
Prominent figure in Polish performance art in the 1980s, best known for his appropriation of the symbolic language of power.
Ütö Gustáv (b. 1958, Romania).
Lived for more than thirty years of his life subject to Ceausescu’s extreme totalitarian regime. Following the coup d’état of 1989 he organised an annual performance festival at St. Anne Lake in Transylvania that acted as a bridge between east and west. He has been active in action art since the 1970s.
