SC – EXPERIMENTAL ZONE; audiovisual research

“IMPRO MONDAYS” SLIDE SHOW HOMMAGE DRAGAN PAJIĆ-PAJO (1956 – 2014) BRIEF HISTORY OF MM’S ACTIVITIES slideshow + commentary RECENT EXPERIMENTAL FILM AND VIDEO Josipa Bubaš, Ivan Faktor, Željko Sarić, Helena Schultheis, Vlasta Žanić In collaboration with: Croatian Film Association, Tomislav Gotovac Institute Within the framework of their enormously numerous activities, realized in the span of sixty years, Galerija SC and MM Centar SC profiled their activity based on five basic postulates, namely; information, presentation, research, education and production in the field of fine and media art. A penchant for the avant-garde, unconventionality, experiment and innovation were and still are the dominant threads that run through all the exhibitions and programs of the two institutions. The basic intention of this exhibition, i.e. the entire program, is to present those authors who actively participated in the construction of the program activities of both spaces, as program participants, engaged artists, active collaborators, proponents or as regular visitors to the program activities of the Gallery and MM Center SC . The second intention of the organizers of the entire double exhibition block is to inform about the aesthetics and research of retrospective works by established artists, and in addition to historical art-media-sound aesthetics, present current artistic trends. The meaning that the mentioned program units of Kulture SC evoked in our cultural public with their work can inevitably be attributed to the artists who marked the activities of those two spaces. Once members of various alternative groups, new art practice, primary painting, conceptual art, performance art and elementary photography, film and video experimentalists, now the artists are in a status where we can comfortably, without exaggeration and quite argumentatively, classify them at the very top of not only local environments, but also European and world art. Their works are found in all major world collections of contemporary art and are presented in the most prestigious galleries, museums and institutions for contemporary art and at art biennials around the world. Although created on an independent scene, in modest production conditions and on the margins of fine arts and film, the works chosen here do not deviate from their basic original principles, bold expressions of personal aspiration towards experimentalism, research into new forms of audiovisual media expressiveness and narration. The unconventionality of the works, consistency, originality and research – always provoke a new reaction/valuation of the audience, as well as critical and theoretical interpretations. We can conclude that admiration was expressed – both by the author and the audience – regarding these two unusual and, according to some, magical exhibition and display spaces, in accordance with the quality of the artistic expression of the authors in the program. The specific architecture of the space is reciprocal to the exceptional artistic work of the artists represented, and this – for artists and institutions – is a unique, affirmatively provocative position when setting up exhibitions and media performances. This exhibition, as well as the projections of films, video works, sound and photography research, historical thematization of artistic interventions in everyday urban space, are just an incentive for some wider and deeper, multidimensional programmatic retrospectives, two in many ways special spaces, which made possible an unusual an important unwritten rule, which is to support the space of creative freedom and diversity of program participants. Inspiring, historical artistic references, contemporary trends in audiovisual and media art, are presented equally on the platform of the experimental zone, Gallery SC and MM Center SC. Curator: Ivan Pajić