This publication followed the exhibition “Strategies of Ready- Mades” by Tomislav Gotovac (1937 – 2010) which opened in 2016, to mark the 79th anniversary of the birth of the artist on February 9. Exhibition organisers were Institute for Contemporary Art and Tomislav Gotovac Institute. The exhibition presented rarely or never before shown works by the artist, which directly or partially refer to a radical artistic practice of Marcel Duchamp. Exhibited were collages, objects and films from different phases of the artist’s vast oeuvre. The selected works were created over 40 years, from the mid of the 70s of the last century. Exhibition dates collided with two important centenaries. Marcel Duchamp used the term “ready-made” for the first time in a letter to his sister, dated January 15, 1916. The same year, a few days later Cabaret Voltaire opened, on February 5, 1916, in Zurich, the event which now is considered to mark the beginning of Dadaism. Those events have very much encouraged and influenced the radical artistic practices in the 20th century, as Gotovac’s work clearly shows. Darko Šimičić offers in his text an insight into Gotovac’s work that opens a new understanding of this particular portion in the body of his work. The exhibition additionally served as a preparatory study for the first retrospective exhibition of Tomislav Gotovac, held in 2017 at the newly opened venue of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka. Tomislav Gotovac worked in a variety of media that span across five decades. He was a multidisciplinary artist, considered the precursor of performance art in Croatia and former Yugoslavia; a pivotal figure in the development of the artistic avant-garde in Eastern Europe during the 1960s and 1970s. Darko Šimičić is an art critic and curator based in Zagreb, Croatia. He is a co-founder of the Tomislav Gotovac Institute in Zagreb where he is currently working as researcher and secretary. His professional interest is focused on avant-gardes in 1920’s and 30’s (Zenithism, dada, Bauhaus, photomontages) and groups and individuals in Croatian art in 1960’s and 1970’s (Gorgona, Mangelos, Group of Six Artists, Tomislav Gotovac). |