Tomislav Gotovac
Tomislav Gotovac, who later changed his name into Antonio Gotovac Lauer, was a film director, a conceptual artist and a performer. From the early 1960s he introduced social themes in his work that he approached critically, using a contemporary language with a radical attitude which was unseen before in the region. He is the author of the first happening in Yugoslavia (Zagreb, 1967) and the first streaking (Belgrade, 1971), and various photographic series which he presented as movie sequences or as documents of his performances (series of photos “Showing Elle,” 1962, “Hands,” 1964, “Streaking,” 1971).
From the end of the 1970s, Gotovac realized a huge number of performances in public places: as an artist who begs, who cleans city spaces, performing public haircutting and shaving… Many of those events might be interpreted as Fluxus events due to their simplicity and similarity with everyday activities, but since they were performed in front of the public in specific situations in a communist country, they represented very often political and subversive acts. B.S.
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