East Side Stories
2013 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
14 min
Igor Grubic
The installation “East Side Story” is based on events that took place in the streets of Belgrade in 2001 and Zagreb in 2002, during the Gay Pride demonstrations, where the participants were the victims of verbal and physical injury by neo-Nazi groups and other citizens. This work is composed of two projections: the first uses television images of the demonstrations while the second is the reconstitution of the events performed by dancers. This piece witnesses nationalism at work in society, aiming particularly at the “internal enemy that sexual minorities might represent”. The use of performance and dance symbolizes creative freedom as well as the possibility to free the body from the public space. The performer’s body sends a signal in the public space in a society lacking social solidarity. This is a counter- monument or a monument of extreme fragility that reactivates repressed images. Aware that art produces hardly any political effects, Grubic keeps on questioning the power of symbolic gestures. According to him this work, full of emotions and intensity, is an aesthetic act of resistance.
Having started his carrier as an activist artist, Igor Grubic became known in 1998 through an action made in tribute to the group RED PERISTYL that had painted in red, the floor in front of Diocletian’s Palace in Split as a provocative gesture against totalitarism. Thirty years later, he reactivated this gesture as a response to a different context in which nationalism and corruption are appearing in different countries of the former Communist bloc experiencing a period of transition. Since then he has performed symbolic actions in the public space recalling May 68 political, as well as anti-fascist, values. His belief in the necessity of individual action is strong. In order to address social and political topics, he prefers using the transgressive power of poetic language rather than critical discourse. Igor Grubic has participated in many international exhibitions including Manifesta.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » KADIST
Sergio De La Torre
2008Nuevo Dragon City is a reenactment of a historical event from 1927 in which six Chinese were either trapped or voluntarily hid themselves inside a building in northern Mexico...
© » KADIST
Gregory Crewdson
2005Forest Gathering N.2 is part of the series of photographs Beneath the Roses (2003-2005) where anonymous townscapes, forest clearings and broad, desolate streets are revealed as sites of mystery and wonder; similarly, ostensibly banal interiors become the staging grounds for strange human scenarios...
© » KADIST
Tony Oursler
2012Continuing Oursler’s broader exploration of the moving image, Absentia is one of three micro-scale installations that incorporate small objects and tiny video projections within a miniature active proscenium...
© » KADIST
Haig Aivazian
For the exhibition 1440 sunsets per 24 hours at KADIST Paris in 2017, Haig Aivazian presented a sprawling installation, which sought to enact various instances of the deployment of light and darkness within public space and sports, reflecting on the double-edged abilities of lighting systems to expose, highlight or dissimulate subjects...
© » KADIST
Burak Delier
2013Burak Delier’s sculpture Homage to Balotelli’s Missed Trick is a symbol of resistance to the demand for success and performance...
© » DAZED DIGITAL
Y2-Slay: Style snaps from Namasenda’s riotous London gig | Dazed â¬…ï¸ Left Arrow *ï¸âƒ£ Asterisk â Star Option Sliders âœ‰ï¸ Mail Exit Fashion Gallery Photographer Michele Baron captures the crowd at the Stockholm-based artist’s recent XOYO show 12 December 2023 Text Dominic Cadogan Namasenda Gig Style by Michele Baron 29 Namasenda ’s unescapable sound is something of an earworm...
© » THEARTNEWSPER
The Van Gogh painting that was stolen—and recovered in an Ikea bag—goes on show Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Adventures with Van Gogh blog The Van Gogh painting that was stolen—and recovered in an Ikea bag—goes on show Research reveals that the artist began the work as a winter scene and transformed it into a spring landscape Martin Bailey 9 February 2024 Share Conservator Marjan de Visser examining Van Gogh’s The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (March 1884) Depot Boijmans van Beuningen...
