The title of the work of Andreja Kulunčić and Zrinka Užbinec – a visual and a dance artist, respectively – long and unusually technicistic, is the authors’ double trap. Specifically, it ‘is’ and ‘is not’ simultaneously. Entirely ‘anti-poetic’ and technically precise, it is largely ‘auto-poetic’ (poiesis – creation). With the dissection of the title, the intersections of the conceptual network found at the basis of the work are excreted; on the other hand, however, its denotative character – which is entirely paradoxical – obscures the work itself. Following the logic of naming chosen by the artists, the title is a linguistic equivalent to work. It indicates that it stands for the analysis of the dance material of a particular project, i.e. that this is a rational process of dissection of said material. The mindful reader can therefore be quite surprised once they find out that the analysis indicated by the title is a dance performance, a sequence of poetic images of dislocated levels of reality, space, time, and interferences.

Let us take a step back, though, to the previous collaboration of the two artists, the project ART-ACT-BOX: Performing the Exhibition, the dance material cited in the new work.(1) Through workshop format and dance choreography, the project thematises, deconstructs and reactivates the conceptual dance practices of the 1960s and 1970s, referring to their basic determinants such as institutional critique, activity in public space with incidental audience, orientation on non-artistic materials, processuality and artistic method as opposed to the artistic object, by recognising in them – even today – the creative tactics of potential activations of everyday life and social engagement. The project serves as Andreja Kulunčić’s response to the call theme of the collaborative museum project Performing the Museum, whereby she problematizes the practices of musealisation. By relocating the museum holdings into non-artistic spaces – as the performances of the ART-ACT-BOX were presented in libraries, nursing homes, cultural centres, secondary schools and a psychiatric hospital – she reactivates them, relieving them temporarily from their museal armour. The concept, however, becomes more complex upon returning to the gallery situation. This time, Andreja Kulunčić and Zrinka Užbinec jointly dissect their own work by using it as artistic material in the new performance, whereby they do not use the works from the museum anymore, but rather the dance choreography they previously used to convey them.

The new work, Analysis of the Dance Material of the ART-ACT-BOX Project: Žitnjak Ateliers, serves both authors as an entrance into the zone of experiment. From the perspective of own fields of expertise, they question the possibilities of dance in museums and galleries and the points of their convergences, by grasping – now from another angle – the subject of “performing the museum”, as well as the experimental thought of the authors cited earlier. Neither of them, however, is in a safe zone anymore. The new collaboration simultaneously builds, demolishes, and changes the framework of the unknown. Both authors put their codes to the test, they question and seek to breach own practices within the newly-created field. They create poetic images, the magic of the performance – which they simultaneously demolish, deconstruct with the descriptions of the method – include the audience, infiltrate, educate themselves… (which is also the legacy of conceptual artists!)

The four steps in the analysis have been disseminated through fractioned gallery space, the physical boundaries of which have been brought into question. Specifically, under the influence of the video projection of the dance material that extends on the walls, its boundaries are being demolished, its dimensions become variable, the real and recorded spaces interfere, whereby they create confusing imagery. The space simultaneously serves as the dancer’s physical support. She measures it, analyses it, leans on it, lies on it, establishes it in relation to her own body, confirming it and denying it at the same time. The entire gallery becomes a liminal zone in which the thresholds flex under feet as the spaces of performance, auditorium and projection have been equalised.

We should not forget, however, that this enchanted space is actually the space of the analysis of the previous artistic material, the dissection of the medium, the uncovering of the code. After all, we are being incessantly reminded of this by the dancer. Also, the auto-poetic discourse of the performance should not be regarded as the auto-referential spinning in circle. Quite the contrary, this is the reversion of the perspective, the shifting of the focus from the aesthetic to the poetic, from the beholder to the production, in order to find in the distortion of relations new paths for the arts as the creative tool of resistance in the existing social surroundings. Specifically, we shall use the theses of Boris Groys who, in the series of essays Going Public, claims that it is only from this perspective that the art can overcome the blended positions of the bio-political era – public and private, consumption and production, amateur and professional… It is only when regarded from the perspective of production, he says, that the question of the politics of art exists, as this is a dimension that is not related with the aesthetic experiences of the viewer, but rather with creative decisions. This is a slippery terrain of questioning, doubt, and the belief that the art can offer tools on the path toward the transformation of established representations.

Irena Bekić

(1) The project ART-ACT-BOX has been conceived in 2016 by visual artist Andreja Kulunčić as part of the project “Performing the Museum” by curator Jasna Jakšić (Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art) and partnering museums, Koroška Gallery of Fine Arts (Slovenj Gradec), Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina (Novi Sad), and Fundació Antoni Tapies (Barcelona). In collaboration with the artist, the research of museum archives for project purposes was conducted by Tihana Puc and Bella Rupena, the choreography for the performance was developed by Zrinka Užbinec, while Dejan Dragosavac-Ruta designed the box and the materials. The performances were presented by the following dance artists: Zrinka Užbinec in Zagreb, Ana Kreitmeyer in Novi Sad, Maja Kalafatić in Slovenj Gradec, and Mar Medina in Barcelona.

2017 saw the continuation of the production and implementation through the upgrade of the performative segment, and the conception and implementation of the exhibition and discursive segment with active inclusion of non-artistic audience, with Martina Kontošić as project coordinator, and produced by MAPA Association. The performances have been presented in Zagreb, Čakovec, Šibenik and Pazin; the exhibition has been held in the space of Žitnjak Ateliers.

Acknowledgements: Ana Bedenko, Slavko Bogdanović, Marko Ercegović, Vlado Gudac, Jovan Jakšić, Luka Kulić, Vlado Martek, Nebojša Milenković, Zoran Pantelić and kuda.org, Pino Poggi, Bojana Švertasek, and Slobodan Tišma.

ART-ACT-BOX has been financed throughout 2017 by Kultura Nova Foundation, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, and the City of Zagreb.