My sweet little lamb. Everything we see could also be otherwise (2016–2017)
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My sweet little lamb. Everything we see could also be otherwise
4 November 2016–11 November 2017
Various places, Zagreb
Curated by What, How & for Whom/WHW in collaboration with Kathrin Rhomberg
"My sweet little lamb (Everything we see could also be otherwise)" takes its title from a work by Mladen Stilinović (1947–2016), to whom the project was dedicated. Stilinović's life-long anti-systemic approach, his quiet but shrewd rebellion against social conventions and the conventions of art, and an artistic practice that trenchantly and humorously engages with complex themes of ideology, work, money, pain and poverty, inspired a generation of artists worldwide.
The project took as its point of departure works from the Kontakt Collection, based in Vienna and initiated in 2004. Today the collection includes seminal works by a number of the most prominent artists from Central, Eastern and South-East Europe since the 1960s, over the years selected by the members of its advisory committee that includes Silvia Eiblmayr, Georg Schöllhammer, Jiří Ševčík, Branka Stipančić and Adam Szymczyk. As such, it is a crucial source for research pertaining to the art history of the region, but also a suitable starting point to critically approach the very notion of Eastern European Art as a short-hand for the geopolitical paradigm and ideological framework in which it is contained, as well as the mechanisms of filtering local material to international prominence within new circuits of communication, distribution and exchange in the art world that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, has become internationalised through models not unlike those of corporate internationalism.
The series of exhibitions "My sweet little lamb (Everything we see could also be otherwise)" staged an interplay of works from the Kontakt Collection with other historical, contemporary, and newly produced pieces that interpret and critically examine the collection. The project interlaced geographically and poetically heterogeneous artistic practices in order to challenge the collection as a finalized and ordered body of knowledge that strives to dislocate the modernist western canon, only to find itself enmeshed in the formation of a "contemporary global canon."
"My sweet little lamb (Everything we see could also be otherwise)" unfolded in six episodes over several months in Zagreb (November 2016–May 2017), influencing, contradicting and reinforcing each other, and taking place in a number of smaller art spaces, artist studios, private apartments and other locations related to artistic production and the broader cultural landscape of the city of Zagreb. The project revisits the endeavors of artists like Geta Brătescu, Stano Filko, Ion Grigorescu, Sanja Iveković, Július Koller, Ewa Partum and Zofia Kulik to make art that subverted the impact of social norms and different degrees of state control, in an attempt to punctuate fixed presentations and interpretations of their work that have been dominating the international art circuits during the last decades with more disorderly and experimental arrangements rooted in the cultural and artistic context of Zagreb.
In times of drastic cuts in the cultural sector and its increasing dependency on private money accumulated as a result of financial speculation that wreaked havoc on social structures, to dedicate the project to Mladen Stilinović also means to rely on one of his typically astute observations: "All the money is dirty, all the money is ours," although there is something less than truthful about claiming to use it as knowingly as Mladen did. And yet, to present the collection in a number of smaller institutional public, semi-public and private spaces in Zagreb, is also a chance to create a manoeuvring space for wider dissemination of the emancipative content of the historical achievements of artists. But most of all, it is a chance to open a playing field in which different criteria of value formation and different genealogies might emerge, in the paradoxical endeavor of simultaneously supplying imaginary solutions and disclosing their impossibility in the current predicament of art and life.
EPISODE ONE
04/11–10/12/2016
Booksa, Gallery Nova, Gallery Student Centre, GMK, Sanja Iveković's archive, Softić apartment
Halil Altındere, Heimrad Bäcker, Maria Bartuszová, Geta Brătescu, Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos, Stano Filko, Oliver Frljić, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, Marcus Geiger, Nina Gojić, Tomislav Gotovac, Ion Grigorescu, Sanja Iveković, Běla Kolářová, Július Koller, Ivan Kožarić, Edward Krasiński, Friedl Kubelka, KwieKulik, Katalin Ladik, Dezső Magyar, Karel Malich, Vlado Martek, Dalibor Martinis, Dóra Maurer, Jan Mlčoch, Paul Neagu, Roman Ondak, Goran Petercol, Hans Scheirl, Mladen Stilinović, Petr Štembera, Slaven Tolj, Goran Trbuljak, Wu Tsang…
EPISODE TWO
29/11–22/12/2016
Gallery Greta, Gallery VN, Institute Tomislav Gotovac
Geta Brătescu, Anna Daučíková, Tim Etchells, VALIE EXPORT, Tomislav Gotovac, Ion Grigorescu, Tibor Hajas, Nikolay Oleynikov, Ewa Partum, Mladen Stilinović, Artur Żmijewski
EPISODE THREE
15/12/2016–04/02/2017
Apartment Softić, Gallery Nova, Pogon - Jedinstvo
BADco., Chto Delat, Keti Chukhrov, Sanja Iveković, Eva Koťátková, KwieKulik, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Mladen Stilinović
EPISODE 4
17/02–25/03/2017
Apartment Softić, Galerija Nova, Galerija Forum, Institute for Contemporary Art/ICA, Galerija Miroslav Kraljević
Đorđe Andrejević Kun, Josef Dabernig, Ion Grigorescu, Sanja Iveković, Gülsün Karamustafa, Július Koller, Jiří Kovanda, Ivan Kožarić, Vlado Kristl, Katalin Ladik, Kazimir Malevich, Slavko Marić, Vlado Martek, Rabih Mroué, Neša Paripović, Goran Petercol, Marko Ristić, Mladen Stilinović, Sven Stilinović, Goran Trbuljak, Ana Vuzdarić & Marko Gutić Mižimakov
EPISODE 5
17–18/02/2017
Association of Architects
Seminar
Zdenka Badovinac, Charles Esche, Reem Fadda, Katalin Ladik, Nikolaj Punjin, Erzen Shkololli, Kate Fowle, Gülsün Karamustafa, Joanna Mytkowska, Manuel Pelmuş, Francoise Vergès, Goran Trbuljak
EPISODE 6
11/04–07/05/2017
HDLU, Apartment Softić, Galerija Nova
Paweł Althamer, Maria Bartuszová, Pavel Brăila, Geta Brătescu, Boris Cvjetanović, Josef Dabernig, Marijan Detoni, Stanisław Dróżdż, Nika Dubrovsky, Róza El-Hassan, Miklós Erdély, Tim Etchells, VALIE EXPORT, Stano Filko, Heinz Gappmayr, Tomislav Gotovac, Ion Grigorescu, Tina Gverović & Siniša Ilić, Sanja Iveković, Julije Knifer, Daniel Knorr, Běla Kolářová, Július Koller, Jiří Kovanda, Ivan Kožarić, Edward Krasiński, Paweł Kwiek, Katalin Ladik, Victoria Lomasko, Karel Malich, David Maljković, Dorit Margreiter, Vlado Martek, Dalibor Martinis, Dóra Maurer, Karel Miler, Jan Mlčoch, Paul Neagu, OHO, Roman Ondak, Boris Ondreička / Ján Zavarský / Vít Havránek, Neša Paripović, Cora Pongracz, Nedko Solakov, Margherita Spiluttini, Tamás St. Auby, Mladen Stilinoviċ, Sven Stilinović, Petr Štembera, Raša Todosijević, Slaven Tolj, Milica Tomić, Goran Trbuljak, Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Lois Weinberger, Heimo Zobernig, Želimir Žilnik
EPILOGUE
Everything we see could also be otherwise. My sweet little lamb
20/09–11/11/2017
The Showroom, London
Lutz Becker, Geta Brătescu, Josef Dabernig, Nika Dubrovsky, Tim Etchells, VALIE EXPORT, Stano Filko, Marcus Geiger, Tomislav Gotovac, Ion Grigorescu, Vlatka Horvat, Sanja Iveković, Běla Kolářová, Július Koller, Jiří Kovanda, Edward Krasiński, KwieKulik, Katalin Ladik, David Maljković, Dóra Maurer, Oscar Murillo, Paul Neagu, Neša Paripović, Ewa Partum, Manuel Pelmuş, Cora Pongracz, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Petr Štembera, Mladen Stilinović, Goran Trbuljak, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, Stephen Willats
4 November 2016–11 November 2017
Various places, Zagreb
Curated by What, How & for Whom/WHW in collaboration with Kathrin Rhomberg
"My sweet little lamb (Everything we see could also be otherwise)" takes its title from a work by Mladen Stilinović (1947–2016), to whom the project was dedicated. Stilinović's life-long anti-systemic approach, his quiet but shrewd rebellion against social conventions and the conventions of art, and an artistic practice that trenchantly and humorously engages with complex themes of ideology, work, money, pain and poverty, inspired a generation of artists worldwide.
The project took as its point of departure works from the Kontakt Collection, based in Vienna and initiated in 2004. Today the collection includes seminal works by a number of the most prominent artists from Central, Eastern and South-East Europe since the 1960s, over the years selected by the members of its advisory committee that includes Silvia Eiblmayr, Georg Schöllhammer, Jiří Ševčík, Branka Stipančić and Adam Szymczyk. As such, it is a crucial source for research pertaining to the art history of the region, but also a suitable starting point to critically approach the very notion of Eastern European Art as a short-hand for the geopolitical paradigm and ideological framework in which it is contained, as well as the mechanisms of filtering local material to international prominence within new circuits of communication, distribution and exchange in the art world that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, has become internationalised through models not unlike those of corporate internationalism.
The series of exhibitions "My sweet little lamb (Everything we see could also be otherwise)" staged an interplay of works from the Kontakt Collection with other historical, contemporary, and newly produced pieces that interpret and critically examine the collection. The project interlaced geographically and poetically heterogeneous artistic practices in order to challenge the collection as a finalized and ordered body of knowledge that strives to dislocate the modernist western canon, only to find itself enmeshed in the formation of a "contemporary global canon."
"My sweet little lamb (Everything we see could also be otherwise)" unfolded in six episodes over several months in Zagreb (November 2016–May 2017), influencing, contradicting and reinforcing each other, and taking place in a number of smaller art spaces, artist studios, private apartments and other locations related to artistic production and the broader cultural landscape of the city of Zagreb. The project revisits the endeavors of artists like Geta Brătescu, Stano Filko, Ion Grigorescu, Sanja Iveković, Július Koller, Ewa Partum and Zofia Kulik to make art that subverted the impact of social norms and different degrees of state control, in an attempt to punctuate fixed presentations and interpretations of their work that have been dominating the international art circuits during the last decades with more disorderly and experimental arrangements rooted in the cultural and artistic context of Zagreb.
In times of drastic cuts in the cultural sector and its increasing dependency on private money accumulated as a result of financial speculation that wreaked havoc on social structures, to dedicate the project to Mladen Stilinović also means to rely on one of his typically astute observations: "All the money is dirty, all the money is ours," although there is something less than truthful about claiming to use it as knowingly as Mladen did. And yet, to present the collection in a number of smaller institutional public, semi-public and private spaces in Zagreb, is also a chance to create a manoeuvring space for wider dissemination of the emancipative content of the historical achievements of artists. But most of all, it is a chance to open a playing field in which different criteria of value formation and different genealogies might emerge, in the paradoxical endeavor of simultaneously supplying imaginary solutions and disclosing their impossibility in the current predicament of art and life.
EPISODE ONE
04/11–10/12/2016
Booksa, Gallery Nova, Gallery Student Centre, GMK, Sanja Iveković's archive, Softić apartment
Halil Altındere, Heimrad Bäcker, Maria Bartuszová, Geta Brătescu, Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos, Stano Filko, Oliver Frljić, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, Marcus Geiger, Nina Gojić, Tomislav Gotovac, Ion Grigorescu, Sanja Iveković, Běla Kolářová, Július Koller, Ivan Kožarić, Edward Krasiński, Friedl Kubelka, KwieKulik, Katalin Ladik, Dezső Magyar, Karel Malich, Vlado Martek, Dalibor Martinis, Dóra Maurer, Jan Mlčoch, Paul Neagu, Roman Ondak, Goran Petercol, Hans Scheirl, Mladen Stilinović, Petr Štembera, Slaven Tolj, Goran Trbuljak, Wu Tsang…
EPISODE TWO
29/11–22/12/2016
Gallery Greta, Gallery VN, Institute Tomislav Gotovac
Geta Brătescu, Anna Daučíková, Tim Etchells, VALIE EXPORT, Tomislav Gotovac, Ion Grigorescu, Tibor Hajas, Nikolay Oleynikov, Ewa Partum, Mladen Stilinović, Artur Żmijewski
EPISODE THREE
15/12/2016–04/02/2017
Apartment Softić, Gallery Nova, Pogon - Jedinstvo
BADco., Chto Delat, Keti Chukhrov, Sanja Iveković, Eva Koťátková, KwieKulik, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Mladen Stilinović
EPISODE 4
17/02–25/03/2017
Apartment Softić, Galerija Nova, Galerija Forum, Institute for Contemporary Art/ICA, Galerija Miroslav Kraljević
Đorđe Andrejević Kun, Josef Dabernig, Ion Grigorescu, Sanja Iveković, Gülsün Karamustafa, Július Koller, Jiří Kovanda, Ivan Kožarić, Vlado Kristl, Katalin Ladik, Kazimir Malevich, Slavko Marić, Vlado Martek, Rabih Mroué, Neša Paripović, Goran Petercol, Marko Ristić, Mladen Stilinović, Sven Stilinović, Goran Trbuljak, Ana Vuzdarić & Marko Gutić Mižimakov
EPISODE 5
17–18/02/2017
Association of Architects
Seminar
Zdenka Badovinac, Charles Esche, Reem Fadda, Katalin Ladik, Nikolaj Punjin, Erzen Shkololli, Kate Fowle, Gülsün Karamustafa, Joanna Mytkowska, Manuel Pelmuş, Francoise Vergès, Goran Trbuljak
EPISODE 6
11/04–07/05/2017
HDLU, Apartment Softić, Galerija Nova
Paweł Althamer, Maria Bartuszová, Pavel Brăila, Geta Brătescu, Boris Cvjetanović, Josef Dabernig, Marijan Detoni, Stanisław Dróżdż, Nika Dubrovsky, Róza El-Hassan, Miklós Erdély, Tim Etchells, VALIE EXPORT, Stano Filko, Heinz Gappmayr, Tomislav Gotovac, Ion Grigorescu, Tina Gverović & Siniša Ilić, Sanja Iveković, Julije Knifer, Daniel Knorr, Běla Kolářová, Július Koller, Jiří Kovanda, Ivan Kožarić, Edward Krasiński, Paweł Kwiek, Katalin Ladik, Victoria Lomasko, Karel Malich, David Maljković, Dorit Margreiter, Vlado Martek, Dalibor Martinis, Dóra Maurer, Karel Miler, Jan Mlčoch, Paul Neagu, OHO, Roman Ondak, Boris Ondreička / Ján Zavarský / Vít Havránek, Neša Paripović, Cora Pongracz, Nedko Solakov, Margherita Spiluttini, Tamás St. Auby, Mladen Stilinoviċ, Sven Stilinović, Petr Štembera, Raša Todosijević, Slaven Tolj, Milica Tomić, Goran Trbuljak, Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Lois Weinberger, Heimo Zobernig, Želimir Žilnik
EPILOGUE
Everything we see could also be otherwise. My sweet little lamb
20/09–11/11/2017
The Showroom, London
Lutz Becker, Geta Brătescu, Josef Dabernig, Nika Dubrovsky, Tim Etchells, VALIE EXPORT, Stano Filko, Marcus Geiger, Tomislav Gotovac, Ion Grigorescu, Vlatka Horvat, Sanja Iveković, Běla Kolářová, Július Koller, Jiří Kovanda, Edward Krasiński, KwieKulik, Katalin Ladik, David Maljković, Dóra Maurer, Oscar Murillo, Paul Neagu, Neša Paripović, Ewa Partum, Manuel Pelmuş, Cora Pongracz, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Petr Štembera, Mladen Stilinović, Goran Trbuljak, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, Stephen Willats