My Sweet Little Lamb (Everything we see could also be otherwise)

04/11/2016 – 08/05/2017

Što, kako i za koga/ WHW
Slovenska 5
Galerija Nova
Teslina 7
10 000 Zagreb
Hrvatska

http://www.whw.hr/galerija-nova/izlozba-my-sweet-little-lamb.html

A series of exhibitions based on the Kontakt Art Collection

The first episode in this series includes works by Halil Altındere, Heimrad Bäcker, Mária Bartuszová, Geta Brătescu, Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos, Stano Filko, Oliver Frljić, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, Marcus Geiger, Nina Gojić, Tomislav Gotovac, Ion Grigorescu, Sanja Iveković, Běla Kolářová, Július Koller, Ivan Kožarić, Edward Krasiński, Friedl Kubelka, KwieKulik, Katalin Ladik, Dezső Magyar, Karel Malich, Vlado Martek, Dalibor Martinis, Dora Maurer, Jan Mlčoch, Paul Neagu, Roman Ondák, Goran Petercol, Hans Scheirl, Mladen Stilinović, Petr Štembera, Slaven Tolj, Goran Trbuljak and Wu Tsang.

Curated by What, How & for Whom/WHW in collaboration with Kathrin Rhomberg
My Sweet Little Lamb (Everything we see could also be otherwise) takes its title from a work by Mladen Stilinović (1947–2016), to whom the overall project is dedicated. Stilinović’s lifelong anti-systemic approach, his quiet but shrewd rebellion against social and artistic conventions, and his artistic practice—which trenchantly and humorously engages with complex themes of ideology, work, money, pain, and poverty—inspired a generation of artists worldwide.

The project takes as its point of departure works from the Kontakt Art Collection, which is based in Vienna and was founded in 2004. Today, the collection includes seminal works by a number of the most prominent artists from Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, works created since the 1960s and selected over the years by the members of its advisory committee, which includes Silvia Eiblmayr, Georg Schöllhammer, Jiří Ševčík, Branka Stipančić and Adam Szymczyk. As such, it is a crucial source for research pertaining to the art history of the region, but also a suitable starting point from which to critically approach the very notion of Eastern European Art as a shorthand for the geopolitical paradigm and ideological framework in which it is situated, as well as to examine the mechanisms by which local material is filtered up to international prominence within new circuits of communication, distribution, and exchange in an art world that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, has become internationalized according to models not unlike those of corporate internationalism.

The exhibition series My Sweet Little Lamb (Everything we see could also be otherwise) will stage an interplay of works from the Kontakt Art Collection with other historical, contemporary, and newly produced pieces that interpret and critically examine the collection. The project will interlace geographically and poetically heterogeneous artistic practices in order to challenge the collection as a finalized and ordered body of knowledge that strives to dislocate the Western modernist canon, only to find itself enmeshed in the formation of a “contemporary global canon.”
My Sweet Little Lamb (Everything we see could also be otherwise) will unfold over several months in Zagreb (November 2016 – May 2017) as six episodes that influence, contradict, and reinforce each other. Each of these will take place at a number of smaller art spaces, artists’ studios, private apartments, and other locations related to artistic production and the city of Zagreb’s broader cultural landscape. The project revisits the endeavors of artists like Geta Brătescu, Stano Filko, Ion Grigorescu, Sanja Iveković, Július Koller, Ewa Partum and Zofia Kulik to create art that subverted the impact of social norms and various degrees of state control, doing so in a survey that attempts to undermine fixed presentations and interpretations of their work that have dominated the international art circuits during the past few decades with more disorderly and experimental arrangements rooted in the cultural and artistic context of Zagreb.

In times of drastic funding cuts to the cultural sector and its increasing dependency on private money accumulated as a result of financial speculation that has wreaked havoc on social structures, dedicating the project to Mladen Stilinović also means relying on one of his typically astute observations: “All the money is dirty, all the money is ours,”—although there is something less than truthful about claiming to use it as knowingly as Mladen did. Even so, presenting the collection in a number of smaller institutional public, semi-public, and private spaces in Zagreb also represents a chance to create some leeway for wider dissemination of the emancipative content represented by artists’ historical achievements. Most of all, however, it is a chance to open up a playing field in which different criteria underlying the formulation of values, as well as different genealogies, might emerge via the paradoxical endeavor of simultaneously supplying imaginary solutions and revealing said solutions’ impossibility in the current predicament of art and life.

Opening days – program:

Friday, 04 Nov. 2016
18h
Opening of Sanja Iveković’s Archive: Private Documents
Studio Sanja Iveković, Savska 1

19:30h
Opening: Friedl Kubelka, FK – Friedl Kubelka. One Is Not Enough
with screening and conversation with the author
curated by Dietmar Schwärzler, SC Gallery team and 25FPS team
Gallery SC, Savska 25

Saturday, 05 Nov. 2016
10:30h
Panel discussion with the Kontakt Art Collection Art Advisory Committee
Silvia Eiblmayr, Georg Schöllhammer, Jiří Ševčík, Branka Stipančić, and Adam Szymczyk
Moderated by Ana Janevski
Association of Architects, Trg Bana Jelačića 3/1

12h
Onward Cakes – Remembering Mladen Stilinović
Zagreb Youth Theatre, Teslina 7

18h
Opening and performance: Nina Gojić, Multilogue for later
Curated by GMK team: Ana Kovačić, Sanja Sekelj, Lea Vene
GMK, Šubićeva 29

20 to 22h
Opening, Gallery Nova and Softić Apartment
Gallery Nova, Teslina 7
Softić Apartment, Gajeva 2 / 6

22h
Party
Association of Architects, Trg Bana Jelačića 3/1
Július Koller: Kontakt (Antihappening)
Booksa Window, Martićeva 14d

Sunday, 06 Nov. 2016

19h
Performance: Oliver Frljić, Whispering History
Gallery Nova, Teslina 7

LIST OF VENUES AND ARTISTS:

Sanja Iveković’s archive: Private Documents
Tuesday to Friday, 16 to 20h
Saturday, 11 to 14h
04–26 Nov. 2016

Gallery Student Centre: Friedl Kubelka, FK – Friedl Kubelka. One Is Not Enough
Tuesday to Friday, 12 to 20h
Saturday, 10 to 13h
04–26 Nov. 2016

Miroslav Kraljević Gallery/ GMK, Nina Gojić: Multilogue for later
Tuesday to Friday, 16 to 20h
Saturday, 11 to 14h
05–26 Nov. 2016

Gallery Nova
Halil Altındere, Mária Bartuszová, Geta Brătescu, Stano Filko, Oliver Frljić, Marcus Geiger, Tomislav Gotovac, Sanja Iveković, Július Koller, Edward Krasiński, Katalin Ladik, Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos, Vlado Martek, Dalibor Martinis, Dora Maurer, Jan Mlčoch, Paul Neagu, Goran Petercol, Hans Scheirl, Mladen Stilinović, Petr Štembera, Slaven Tolj
Tuesday to Friday, 12 to 20h
Saturday, 11 to 14h
05 Nov. – 10 Dec. 2016

Softić Apartment
Heimrad Bäcker, Mária Bartuszová, Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, Ion Grigorescu, Běla Kolářová, Ivan Kožarić, Edward Krasiński, KwieKulik, Dezső Magyar, Karel Malich, Vlado Martek, Roman Ondák, Mladen Stilinović, Petr Štembera, Goran Trbuljak, Wu Tsang
Tuesday to Friday, 12 to 20h
Saturday, 11 to 14h
05 Nov. – 10 Dec. 2016

Booksa Window
Július Koller, Kontakt (Antihappening)
05–26 Nov. 2016
Project supported by:
ERSTE Foundation
Additional support:
Austrian Cultural Forum Zagreb
Croatian Audiovisual Centre/HAVC
Kultura Nova Foundation
Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia
Office of Culture, Education and Sport of the City of Zagreb
Trust for Mutual Understanding
Foto: Ion Grigorescu, Family Meal, 1974; ©Kontakt. The Art Collection of Erste Group and ERSTE Foundation