Film & Video (Film & Video)

The Red City of the Planet of Capitalism is part of a three project lineage, following Bahar Noorizadeh’s research on the architecture of the Soviet Union. The video focuses on the peculiar story of the Russian architect Moisei Ginzburg, who, in the late 1920s, suddenly turned his back on Le Corbusier, the French father of urbanist modernism. While Ginzburg had been a fervent follower of Le Corbusier’s philosophy, the story says that he was converted to disurbanism in only half an hour by the urban sociologist Mikhail Okhitovich.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

The Orbit by Bo Wang is based on the story of Hu Na, a former professional tennis player who was known for defecting from the People’s Republic of China. While on tour in California for the 1982 Federation Cup with the China Federation Cup team, Hu Na fled her hotel room and sought refuge at a friend’s home on her second day in the United States. In April 1983, she requested political asylum on the basis that she had a well-founded fear of persecution because of repeatedly refusing to join the Communist Party of China’s tennis team.

Installation (Installation)

Lifesize Draft is the second of two sculptures on a similar theme, the first one being Utopia Battery, (2008). The latter is also in an edition of 3, one of which is in the collection of the Ludwig Muzeum, Budapest. Although Lifesize Draft was made after Utopia Battery, Kisspal conceived it more or less at the same time and sees the two works as closely related.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Berlin Remake ( 2005) combines extracts of East German films with images filmed by the artist in Berlin. While staying in Berlin, the artist found the locations where the official films were made and she juxtaposes the two in a synchronised double projection. Therefore on one screen there is Berlin between 1945 and 1989 and on the other Berlin in 2004.

Photography (Photography)

366 Liberation Rituals is a series that gathers a number of actions related to the artist’s micro-politics. They materialize as a plurality of pointers that destabilize reality and interrogate our outlook on the political historicity of former Yugoslavia. These actions were realized over the course of the year the artist turned forty and revolved for one part around the revolutionary movement of 1968 and on the other on the informal group called Grupa šestorice autora (Group of Six Authors)* which was active in Zagreb between 1975 and 1979.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

In Destinos Posibles Garciga performs a service in Havana, Cuba by offering strangers in the streets a “ride” to wherever they are going for free, in exchange he demands that the passengers address the question “what do they want from life?” A poignant video within the context of the limitations the Cubans have in terms of choices, desires, fantasies, and longing.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Gikan Sa Ngitngit Nga Kinailadman (From The Dark Depths) by Kiri Dalena is a stylistically collaged film inspired by the true story of a young activist’s drowning. Moving between reality and fantasy, it depicts the story of a dead communist who sinks to the bottom of the ocean into a dreamlike subaquatic utopia. In the film a young woman mourns the death of an activist that took place years ago.

Photography (Photography)

This work is one of Koller’s many variations which he began to use from 1970 to describe the ‘cultural situations’ he created. His “Anti-Happenings” turned mundane events into ‘cultural’ and ‘subjective’ situations. He sought to create new cultural situations that weren’t new art, but rather new ways of living: a new creativity for a new humanistic culture.

This work presents the image of an immolated monk engraved on a baseball bat. The flames surround him eroding the extremity of the bat. The delicate sculpture refers to the sacrifice of the Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc, who immolated himself on June 16th 1963, in reaction to the discrimination and the repressive politics of the Diem Catholic regime (regime installed by the Americans) towards the Buddhists.

Performance (Performance)

This work needs to be considered in relation to one of his performances during which people were made to queue in front of the Kunsthalle of Frankfurt in 2003 (Tate Collection). In this instance Ondak collected images of people queuing in front of all sorts of buildings in various newspapers. He then inserted these in a Slovakian newspaper without trying to give any coherence with the information in the text on the same page.