Janka Vukmir
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The proposed theme of the 29th Slavonian Biennial in Osijek in 2024 titled The Institute of the Invisible emerges from associations with a two-component signifier of the current cultural and visual arts scene in Osijek.
On the one hand, the argument for invisibility is supported by the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the most renowned Osijek artist, Julije Knifer (1924-2004). After leaving Osijek with his family shortly after World War II, he did not visit it often in later years nor did he exhibit frequently in Osijek during his lifetime. I am not referring to the mutual invisibility of Knifer and Osijek, but rather to what remains invisible in Knifer's work behind the perpetuated signs of the meander, what remains behind their physical realization, what is contained in the thoughts layered behind the meanders, thoughts that are contained in the process of work as an active signifier of the work, and that is primarily the idea, beyond its physical or visual existence.
In his Banal Diaries (in the small segment I've read so far), Knifer doesn't mention physical invisibility. When he mentions visibility, which is not often, it's almost always in the phrase 'barely visible' and refers to the physically visible progress in his work, in the creation of drawings, to the visibility of artistic activity. Referring to his own awareness that the work he does — he is engaged in painting — is absurd, he believes that he must transform this absurdity into a certain reality, that he must materialize and visualize it. And so, the absurdity becomes a physical object, visible, of course.
Since there is no art without an audience, this physical object had to find its way to a place where, on its journey to a public exhibition, it could offer a contingent of its possible meanings, concepts, thoughts, and ideas. Because the meander is, above all, an idea.
In order for a work of art to reach the public, convention usually dictates that it be exhibited by a qualified or verified institution, such as a gallery or museum, a public space, or whatever is appropriate for the work. The Museum of Fine Arts Osijek, the founder and organizer of the Slavonian Biennial since 1968, is currently not fully operational due to the closure of its premises for renovation, so the 29th Slavonian Biennial is being held in temporary venues in Osijek. Along with other Croatian museums closed for energy renovation or other types of renovations and all Zagreb museums and galleries closed due to post-earthquake reconstruction, the visual arts sector has simultaneously fallen into the 'barely visible' zone of the cultural sector. Thus, on the other side of the argument about invisibility, there are precisely the mechanisms for presenting works of art.
In the context of Croatian art history, Goran Trbuljak's work speaks to this, where he, in a manner characteristic of himself, affirms the role of the institution organizing the exhibition as superior to the content of the works it presents. The fact that someone was given the opportunity to organize an exhibition is more important than what will be shown. Thus, the institution of the work's institutional visibility is hierarchically superimposed on the content of the displayed work, which can remain invisible. This sacrilegious, blasphemous thought, transformed into a physical work, a graphic work, a poster, is a revelation of absurdity. Yet another manifestation of absurdity.
There are countless forms of invisibility in art. I don't think it's crucial to describe or list them here. Art has always, among other things, visualized the invisible, from religious paintings that visualized imagined concepts to new media activities and activism, from visual arts to literature, and so on across all artistic disciplines. Crtalić's Invisible Sisak, Kipke's Invisible Sculpture, Ivana Pipal's Invisible Spaces, just Invisible by Vanda Kreutz or Ante Jerković's lnvisibile; from the exhibition Invisible that Surrounds Us at Kontejner's Touch Me Festival or the Structures of the Invisible curated by Martina Kramer, to the famous exhibition Invisible — Art about the Unseen 1957-2012 by Ralph Rugoff at London's Hayward Gallery, all are artworks or exhibitions that carry invisibility in their title. Others expose (in)visibility to the gaze through voids, such as Kožarić's casts of the interior of the heads of Gorgona members, Maračić's Empty Frames Vanished Contents, Stilinović's Removed from the Crowd, and the spatial and sonic voids from Klen's Void and Cage's 4' 33" of silence to the Picture in the Wall, a literally wall-mounted object by the Osijek artist Krunoslav Stipešević. These are just a few sporadic examples that come to mind at this moment. It can be a matter of physical, optical invisibility, or of imaginary cloaks or shields of invisibility, to conceal the object from view. However, many works about invisibility go in the opposite direction and seek the affirmation of what is not visible enough, they want to illuminate the invisible with attention, or with imagination, by invoking or affirming memories and recollections.
The exhibition Institute of the Invisible explores both the physical manifestations of invisibility of the artworks and the artists' conceptual approach to the theme of the 29th Slavonian Biennial, to what they thematically consider barely or insufficiently visible, and therefore their attention is directed precisely towards that. Their research introduces us to areas and a wide range of their interests.
This 29th edition of the Slavonian Biennial in 2024 is dominated by several thematic branches, with the overcoming of traumas — personal, familial, social, technological, historical, war-related, and migratory — being the most prevalent. The era of exhibitions that ignore the pressing issues of war, war migration, and social injustice towards specific minorities is over. Themes of body, nature, science, ecology, and climate change permeate the exhibition, either as standalone concepts or as a substrate within other themes, in an atmosphere of threat or fear and of unknown outcomes. Artists in their works question the concept of work and its value, whether referring to work as an action or to the practice of their own artistic activity, a specific medium, or a sphere of a specific demographic group within which artistic expressions and interests are articulated into works. Underlying many of these works is institutional critique of various areas of artistic activity… so that perhaps the unifying theme for all of them is one that explores the various invisible hands of the economy that condition the dominant themes of today, without much optimism but sometimes with a lot of humor.
The works presented here equally emphasize both individual, personal, and contemplative experiences and interpretations, as well as broader individual, personal, contemplative experiences or interpretations. Compared to the past decade, the artists seem to have presented less overt activism and more individual voices within the overall atmosphere of the exhibition. This may suggest a paradigm shift from an activist-oriented, politically engaged artistic practice towards a more poetic and atomized individual starting point.
Concurrenty, it seems to me that there is an increasing sense of the common, though not necessarily the collective. This does not imply an absence of socially engaged works within the realm of more intimate pieces.
Beyond these works, there are also those that delve into the realm of actual optical visibility through geometry, electronic manipulation of the medium, or simply the basic principles of drawing or other visual arts disciplines and techniques.
Perhaps it is precisely Osijek, at this historical moment when it has begun its new development at an accelerated pace, that is the right place to reflect on the invisible, but only if it takes into account that its development is taking place within Slavonia, which is literally fading in its physical appearance. Perhaps Osijek, as it grows stronger, may be poised to foster a sense of mutual solidarity, trust, and understanding that extends far beyond its immediate region, and the Slavonian Biennale has long been an international exhibition. Perhaps nothing of economic measurability can help politics if it does not acknowledge the immeasurable value of poetics. Perhaps the wheel — everything has a price, but nothing has value — will finally turn, even if only for a short time, while this exhibition illuminates what is invisible.
We often fear the darkness because it obscures our surroundings. Yet, when we finally see what lies in the shadows, the surroundings can be scarier than what we imagined was threatening us. For this, of course, there are possible means, processes, and solutions that artists offer us with their ideas because the sensitivity of poetics is almost the only thing that can oppose the brutality of reality.
—
The proposed theme of the 29th Slavonian Biennial in Osijek in 2024 titled The Institute of the Invisible emerges from associations with a two-component signifier of the current cultural and visual arts scene in Osijek.
On the one hand, the argument for invisibility is supported by the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the most renowned Osijek artist, Julije Knifer (1924-2004). After leaving Osijek with his family shortly after World War II, he did not visit it often in later years nor did he exhibit frequently in Osijek during his lifetime. I am not referring to the mutual invisibility of Knifer and Osijek, but rather to what remains invisible in Knifer's work behind the perpetuated signs of the meander, what remains behind their physical realization, what is contained in the thoughts layered behind the meanders, thoughts that are contained in the process of work as an active signifier of the work, and that is primarily the idea, beyond its physical or visual existence.
In his Banal Diaries (in the small segment I've read so far), Knifer doesn't mention physical invisibility. When he mentions visibility, which is not often, it's almost always in the phrase 'barely visible' and refers to the physically visible progress in his work, in the creation of drawings, to the visibility of artistic activity. Referring to his own awareness that the work he does — he is engaged in painting — is absurd, he believes that he must transform this absurdity into a certain reality, that he must materialize and visualize it. And so, the absurdity becomes a physical object, visible, of course.
Since there is no art without an audience, this physical object had to find its way to a place where, on its journey to a public exhibition, it could offer a contingent of its possible meanings, concepts, thoughts, and ideas. Because the meander is, above all, an idea.
In order for a work of art to reach the public, convention usually dictates that it be exhibited by a qualified or verified institution, such as a gallery or museum, a public space, or whatever is appropriate for the work. The Museum of Fine Arts Osijek, the founder and organizer of the Slavonian Biennial since 1968, is currently not fully operational due to the closure of its premises for renovation, so the 29th Slavonian Biennial is being held in temporary venues in Osijek. Along with other Croatian museums closed for energy renovation or other types of renovations and all Zagreb museums and galleries closed due to post-earthquake reconstruction, the visual arts sector has simultaneously fallen into the 'barely visible' zone of the cultural sector. Thus, on the other side of the argument about invisibility, there are precisely the mechanisms for presenting works of art.
In the context of Croatian art history, Goran Trbuljak's work speaks to this, where he, in a manner characteristic of himself, affirms the role of the institution organizing the exhibition as superior to the content of the works it presents. The fact that someone was given the opportunity to organize an exhibition is more important than what will be shown. Thus, the institution of the work's institutional visibility is hierarchically superimposed on the content of the displayed work, which can remain invisible. This sacrilegious, blasphemous thought, transformed into a physical work, a graphic work, a poster, is a revelation of absurdity. Yet another manifestation of absurdity.
There are countless forms of invisibility in art. I don't think it's crucial to describe or list them here. Art has always, among other things, visualized the invisible, from religious paintings that visualized imagined concepts to new media activities and activism, from visual arts to literature, and so on across all artistic disciplines. Crtalić's Invisible Sisak, Kipke's Invisible Sculpture, Ivana Pipal's Invisible Spaces, just Invisible by Vanda Kreutz or Ante Jerković's lnvisibile; from the exhibition Invisible that Surrounds Us at Kontejner's Touch Me Festival or the Structures of the Invisible curated by Martina Kramer, to the famous exhibition Invisible — Art about the Unseen 1957-2012 by Ralph Rugoff at London's Hayward Gallery, all are artworks or exhibitions that carry invisibility in their title. Others expose (in)visibility to the gaze through voids, such as Kožarić's casts of the interior of the heads of Gorgona members, Maračić's Empty Frames Vanished Contents, Stilinović's Removed from the Crowd, and the spatial and sonic voids from Klen's Void and Cage's 4' 33" of silence to the Picture in the Wall, a literally wall-mounted object by the Osijek artist Krunoslav Stipešević. These are just a few sporadic examples that come to mind at this moment. It can be a matter of physical, optical invisibility, or of imaginary cloaks or shields of invisibility, to conceal the object from view. However, many works about invisibility go in the opposite direction and seek the affirmation of what is not visible enough, they want to illuminate the invisible with attention, or with imagination, by invoking or affirming memories and recollections.
The exhibition Institute of the Invisible explores both the physical manifestations of invisibility of the artworks and the artists' conceptual approach to the theme of the 29th Slavonian Biennial, to what they thematically consider barely or insufficiently visible, and therefore their attention is directed precisely towards that. Their research introduces us to areas and a wide range of their interests.
This 29th edition of the Slavonian Biennial in 2024 is dominated by several thematic branches, with the overcoming of traumas — personal, familial, social, technological, historical, war-related, and migratory — being the most prevalent. The era of exhibitions that ignore the pressing issues of war, war migration, and social injustice towards specific minorities is over. Themes of body, nature, science, ecology, and climate change permeate the exhibition, either as standalone concepts or as a substrate within other themes, in an atmosphere of threat or fear and of unknown outcomes. Artists in their works question the concept of work and its value, whether referring to work as an action or to the practice of their own artistic activity, a specific medium, or a sphere of a specific demographic group within which artistic expressions and interests are articulated into works. Underlying many of these works is institutional critique of various areas of artistic activity… so that perhaps the unifying theme for all of them is one that explores the various invisible hands of the economy that condition the dominant themes of today, without much optimism but sometimes with a lot of humor.
The works presented here equally emphasize both individual, personal, and contemplative experiences and interpretations, as well as broader individual, personal, contemplative experiences or interpretations. Compared to the past decade, the artists seem to have presented less overt activism and more individual voices within the overall atmosphere of the exhibition. This may suggest a paradigm shift from an activist-oriented, politically engaged artistic practice towards a more poetic and atomized individual starting point.
Concurrenty, it seems to me that there is an increasing sense of the common, though not necessarily the collective. This does not imply an absence of socially engaged works within the realm of more intimate pieces.
Beyond these works, there are also those that delve into the realm of actual optical visibility through geometry, electronic manipulation of the medium, or simply the basic principles of drawing or other visual arts disciplines and techniques.
Perhaps it is precisely Osijek, at this historical moment when it has begun its new development at an accelerated pace, that is the right place to reflect on the invisible, but only if it takes into account that its development is taking place within Slavonia, which is literally fading in its physical appearance. Perhaps Osijek, as it grows stronger, may be poised to foster a sense of mutual solidarity, trust, and understanding that extends far beyond its immediate region, and the Slavonian Biennale has long been an international exhibition. Perhaps nothing of economic measurability can help politics if it does not acknowledge the immeasurable value of poetics. Perhaps the wheel — everything has a price, but nothing has value — will finally turn, even if only for a short time, while this exhibition illuminates what is invisible.
We often fear the darkness because it obscures our surroundings. Yet, when we finally see what lies in the shadows, the surroundings can be scarier than what we imagined was threatening us. For this, of course, there are possible means, processes, and solutions that artists offer us with their ideas because the sensitivity of poetics is almost the only thing that can oppose the brutality of reality.