Join the Confrontations research group for a critical conversation exploring the heterogeneous streams of eighties art with art historian Leonida Kovač and curator Darko Šimičić during the Zagreb-Ljubljana episode of Confrontations: Sessions in East European Art History.

What was distinctive about the turn to New Painting in the Yugoslav art space? How are the potentialities and tensions of the eighties manifest in the oeuvre of Croatian artist Edita Schubert? What was the importance of alternative art venues such as the Gallery of Extended Media, in providing a platform for the characteristically post-modern comingling of high and low registers, the fine arts and underground music, subcultural trends and the visual arts? How can generational and historical divides be bridged, and what can be salvaged from the otherness of the time before the nineties?

For more details about the collective research project Confrontations: Sessions in East European Art History, which is based at the Post-Socialist Art Centre (PACT), Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London, co-directed by Maja and Reuben Fowkes, and supported with a grant from the Getty Foundation, see: http://translocal.org/page1.html

Leonida Kovač, PhD is an art historian, theorist and curator who works as the associate professor at the University of Zagreb – Academy of Fine Arts, where she lectures Art History, Contemporary Art and Contemporary Theories. She also lectures Intermedial Art Practices at the Doctoral Studies in Literature, Performing Arts, Film and Culture at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. From 1993 to 2008 she worked as curator and chief curator in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb. She has published the following books: Konteksti (Contexts), 1997; Kodovi identiteta (Codes of Identity), 2001; Edita Schubert, 2001; Relacionirane stvarnosti (Relationalized Realities), 2007; Gorki Žuvela: Izmislite sebe (Gorki Žuvela: Invent Yourself), 2009; Anonimalia:Normativni diskursi i samoreprezentacija umjetnica 20. stoljeća (Anonimalia: Normative Discourses and Self-representation of 20th Century Women Artists), 2010; In the Mirror of the Cultural Screen: Jagoda Kaloper, 2013; Tübingenska kutija: Eseji o vizualnoj kulturi i biopolitici (The Tübingen Box: Essays on Visual Culture and Biopolitics), 2013; Mrđan Bajić: Dis-enacting Transversals, 2017.

Darko Šimičić (b. 1957) is an art-critic and curator based in Zagreb, Croatia. He was co-founder of the Tomislav Gotovac Institute in Zagreb where he is currently working as researcher and secretary. Previously he worked at the Soros Center for Contemporary Art / Institute for Contemporary Art (1996 – 2006) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2006 – 2009). 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). He was a member of project team of Tomislav Gotovac’s retrospective (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka 2017) and co-editor of the book Tomislav Gotovac: Crisis Anticipator, published on that occasion.

Institute for Contemporary Art is a Zagreb based independent cultural organisation running a gallery, reading room and archive. We publish books and artist’s books, hold seminars, research, and work to support the development of visual arts and artists.