Graz, 04.06. - 24.08.2008




Graz Kunstverein is presenting an exhibition curated by the Croatian women curators collective WHW (what, how & for whom), featuring the Yugoslav-Croatian sculptor and architect Vojin Bakic († 1992).

Bakic’s work occupies a key position in the art of former Yugoslavia: during the Cold War, abstraction in art was made the arena for quite different and opposing ideologies and their interpretations or appropriations. Bakic’s work rejected such simplifications from the 1950s onwards by employing abstraction - as an artistic grammar of forms – inside of the official, socialist art system. With his independent and wilful stance within the state art system, he questioned the polarity between which many artists in eastern Europe had chosen till then: conformity, or a withdrawal into the private sphere. Instead of responding to the demands of this either-or and abandoning artistic issues in favour of one or other of the ideologies, he decided to centre his attention on the conflict between the positions. Bakic’s art, the successes and difficulties he encountered during his life, as well as the current disregard that is shown towards him from official Croatian quarters, provide a touchstone with which one can explore various problems and figures in the post-socialist arena.

The exhibition will take into account the political and contextual complexity of Bakic’s position by means of a comprehensive documentary section, which will focus on the history of Bakic’s reception both in socialist Yugoslavia and post-socialist Croatia. His work also serves as an important fulcrum when considering the Yugoslavian post- and retro- avant-gardes of the 1960s and ‘70s, as well more recent approaches (David Maljkovic, for instance, has on a number of occasions quoted the form of Bakic’s monument “Petrova Gora”).
The project is of the utmost importance within the current political context in Europe, which is now marked on the one side by the enlargement of the Union, intercultural exchange, and an active response to its own European history, and on the other by restorational thinking, a blindness towards differences, and the rise of new Nationalisms.

The exhibition will show Bakic’s unique models, sculptures, and even his drafts for public construction projects. In addition, the project will also contain a large body of privately kept works that are still owned by the Bakic family, who have granted permission for the pieces to be restored and presented for the first time in public.

WHW consists of Ivet Ćurlin, Ana Dević, Natasa Ilić and Sabina Sabolović (all from Zagreb), who have worked together since 1999. Also permanently involved in their activities is the designer Dejan Krsic (likewise from Zagreb). WHW have come to enjoy great international acclaim through projects such as "Kollektive Kreativität" (shown for instance at the Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel), or the programme at "Galerija Nova" which they run in Zagreb. They are also the curators of the next Istanbul Biennale. WHW' work work is located at the crossover point between art, history and politics. A particular concern of WHW - in the light of the political context in Croatia - is to bring current and official readings of culture face to face with alternatives that have not been shaped by the normative tendencies of nationalist ideology.

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im Palais Thinnfeld
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