COLLECTIVE CREATIVITY

An exhibition on collective practices & group enjoyment

One does not escape a bourgeois problematic of the subject simply by collectivizing that subject...
[Terry Eagleton, Walter Benjamin or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism, p. 131]

WORKING MATERIAL

COLLECTIVE CREATIVITY
An exhibition on collective practices & group enjoyment

The exhibition is dedicated to anonymous worker

Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany May 1 July 15, 2005 The exhibition COLLECTIVE CREATIVITY is a cooperation between the Kunsthalle Fridericianum and Siemens Arts Program Artistic directors: Ren Block and Angelika Nollert Curated by What, How & for Whom / WHW, Zagreb, Croatia

Individuality has been exaggerated in the 20th century. Everybody wants to be different, but individuality is just wishful thinking. It is a sales argument, designed to stimulate commerce... we want something more corporate. We cultivate annonimity. [Kraftwerk]

kraftwerk, the electric quartet, cca 1977 gilbert and george: portrait by christopher felver, fournier street, 1989. gorgona: adoration, 1966 laibach kunst: ausstellung laibach kunst, pm, 1983

RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

COLLECTIVE CREATIVITY
An exhibition on collective practices & group enjoyment
The phenomenon of the artists group is both paradoxical and dynamic. On the one hand it is a negation of the romantic idea of the individual genius, but on the other hand, the art group is not simply the sum of its individual parts, but draws its character from the creative possibilities of different interactions and synergies. Numerous artists groups and collectives working in the eld of visual arts during the second half of the 20th century questioned the very essence of artistic production, negating it or shifting it closer to other elds, such as architecture, design, theatre, science or daily life. The exhibition deals with different forms of collective artistic creativity whose protagonists share common programs, ways of life, methodologies or political standpoints. Although the work of collectives is in many ways determined by certain historical, existential, intellectual or political contexts, the exhibition is interested in specic kinds of social tensions that serve as a common axis around which various group activities are being organized. While conscious of collective artistic practices of previous centuries and historical avant-gardes, the exhibition concentrates on developments after the neo/post avant-garde movements in the 60s until today. Exploring procedures, standpoints, effects, strategies, and social possibilities of collective activity, the exhibition attempts to dene different forms of collectivity inevitably generated by group work. In the focus are therefore different emancipatory aspects of collective work [no matter if it is about formal groups, movements,
WORKING PAPERS

oho: mount triglav, happening in zvezda park, ljubljana, december 30, 1968 irwin: like to like, 2004. kart: horkeskart [choir], 2000-

Collaborative creativity is not only a form of resisting the capitalist call for specialization but also a form of hidden struggle with the ilusion of the autonomous ego...
[Viktor Mazin, Dreaming museums, Manifesta Journal No 3, Spring/ Summer 2004, p. 19]
crveni peristil: red peristil, urban intervention, split, 1968 anonymous author: black peristil, urban intervention, split, 1968

RESEARCH DOCUMENT

communities, scenes, communes, artists couples or individuals assuming group identity]. Which strategies are taken by collectives in public space, which alternative forms of sociability are generated, in which ways do they occupy and change the system and the conditions of production and representation, how do they affect the social order? The exhibition does not see group activity solely in terms of the scope and efciency of tools used in attempts to change sociopolitical situation; it also traces paradoxes of self-sufcient enjoyment in group work, which inevitably overcomes and betrays its own instrumentality and use value. GENERATING CONDITIONS FOR COLLECTIVE CREATIVITY What, How & for Whom, the three basic questions of every economic analysis, constantly dene the work of our curatorial collective. Exploration of the phenomena of collective creativity is positioned within the experience of our own collective curatorial practice which is inevitably exposed to questioning specic inner dynamics of the collective, its strategies and reach, as well as to specic circumstances of post-communist, Eastern European, transitional realities. In that regard the exhibition treats collective creativity from two perspectives, in the sense that methods and models of collective work are equal to the theme of the exhibition the exhibition itself is trying to generate the conditions for collective creativity. Although the context of the exhibition is dened by complex intersections of contemporary and historical perspectives, as well as by cultural and geo-political parallels and divergences of different localities, the exhibition does not attempt at homogenous and nished history of collective artistic creativity. Rather, it offers a certain collectively subjective vision very much based in the cultural terrain which renders the reading of modernity as the unique and homogenous cultural capital of the West very problematic.
WORKING PROPOSAL

maj 75, group of six authors, magazine general idea: le magazine [no 25, 1986]

...transnational situation of the world system in which genuinely trans-national classes, such as new international proletariat and a new density of global management, have not yet anywhere clearly emerged. These constellated and alegorical subjectpositions are however, as likely to be collective as they are individual-schizophrenic...
[Fredric Jameson: The Geopolitical Aesthetic, Indiana University Press/BFI, Bloomington-London, 1992, p. 5]

RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

The question what is an attempt to trace specic moments of collective artistic creativity and the conditions in which it has been generated, the question how insists on the power of the traditional white cube exhibition to articulate critical discourse, and in relation to that the question for whom attempts to instigate creative interactions with the social environment, local communities, public, and media, by triggering a number of artistic projects tailored for local situation of the museum and city of Kassel and its cultural and artistic institutions. COLLECTIV-EAST DREAM In many Eastern European countries there is a rich tradition of artists groups and collectives whose work posed a strong critic of social institutions and dominant cultural policy. Exploration of tradition of collective artistic work seems to be especially interesting from the perspective of New Europe, as well as in the context of other geographical points with similar troubles with modernism and tradition of artists self-organizing such as Middle East or South America. The focus on Eastern Europe is not meant as support of the thesis of cultural assimilation nor of essential differences simplied to consequences of communist regimes, but as a more productive attempt at the reformulation of cultural identities. Mapping of various trans-generational and international links and connections is based on the perspective of peripheral cultural zone, effects of international emancipatory movements, popular culture and lifestyles. Although being aware of the limitations of our specic Zagreb-based and generation-based perspective, the intention is to articulate it in order to check the initial presumption that collective art production in Eastern Europe generally aims at a different art system than in the West. We are
WORKING PAPERS

3ns3: arco 10, 1981 tucaman arde, 1968

oda projesi: mne model, annex 2003.

the category of the individual character as such is also outmoded, as utmoded as that of the nation state [the comparison, meanwhile, very much including the fact that both these things still exist].
[Fredric Jameson: The Geopolitical Aesthetic, Indiana University Press/BFI, Bloomington-London, 1992, p. 176]

10

RESEARCH DOCUMENT

especially interested in relating it to situations of South America, where there are a number of groups, and like in Eastern Europe, also a strong tradition of art collectives since early modernism. The reasons for this are, rst of all, to investigate whether in certain authoritarian and restrictive political regimes art serves as a political realm, and whether this is also reflected in collective work. The interest in a specic politicality of collective creativity would also delineate the inclusion of collective art practice from the West, which is clearly a reference for global contemporary art. PRINTED MATTER For the exhibition opening newspapers will be published, gathering all the practical information and serving as easily distributed project info. That format is also following tradition of many avant-garde groups that used newspapers for propaganda and dissemination of ideas. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue edited by Ren Block, Angelika Nollert, and WHW. During the research process for the exhibition, material will be gathered for a book-catalogue, imagined as a more comprehensive overview and also a place to discuss specic topics or document works omitted in the show itself. The emphasis in the bookcatalogue will be on re-publishing as much as possible of original printed material, such as group manifestos and texts. The book will also include new texts by several artists/theoreticians.

What, how, for whom [WHW], 2004

WORKING PROPOSAL

11

What, How & for Whom [WHW] is a non-prot organization for visual culture and curators collective formed in 1999 and based in Zagreb, Croatia. Its members are Ivet urlin [1969], Ana Devi [1969], Nataa Ili [1970], Dejan Kri [1961] and Sabina Sabolovi [1975]. All WHW projects have been conceived as a platform for discussing relevant social issues through art, theory and media, as well as a model of collaboration and exchange of know-how between cultural organizations of

WHAT, HOW, FOR WHOM [WHW] is an independent curatorial collective that organizes different production, exhibition and publishing projects and also directs Galerija Nova in Zagreb, Croatia

different backgrounds. Besides exhibitions, WHW projects encompass lectures and public discussions conducted by international artists, curators and cultural theoreticians; publications and a book edition on contemporary curatorial practice and cultural theory; radio broadcasts and interventions, screenings and live acts. WHW started to work together on the exhibition focused on relation between art and economy called What, How & for Whom, dedicated to the 152nd anniversary of the Communist Manifesto in 1999 and the impetus for the project came from the amnesia about the recent local past. The exhibition gathering 49 artists from 16 european countries, inviting for the rst time in the Nineties artist from neighbouring countries, was shown in Zagreb [2000] and Vienna [2001]. Currently WHW is preparing pocket version to be presented in Seoul in 2004 and possible new version of the exhibition for autumn 2005.

12

COLLECTIVE CV

Broadcasting project, dedicated to Nikola Tesla was conceived as a long-term series of cultural events [lectures, screenings, radio shows, supplements in the cultural magazine, book edition...] that questioned the social and artistic implications of broadcast media from different perspectives. The project was developped in cooperation with 3rd program of the National radio, magazine Zarez and Radio Student. The exhibition itself was held in 2002 in the Technical museum in Zagreb. Since May 2003 WHW has been running the program of Gallery NOVA - non-prot city owned gallery in the center of Zagreb. Besides local and international exhibitions, the program is characterised by series of events that are designed to turn the gallery into a vivid cultural centre, and includes concerts, theatre performances, lm screenings and public discussions. The program is grounded in the locality of art production in Croatia but is also concieved as a proposal what might be needed here. Among WHWs international shows are START [mestna gallery ljubljana, gallery karas zagreb], Looking Awry [apex art, new york,
PREVIOUS WORKS

13

2003], Side-effects [salon of museum of contemporary art, belgrade, 2004]. The most ambitious long-term project in which WHW is currently involved is the Zagreb - Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000 which is a collaborative platform initiated by four independent cultural organizations in Croatia - Center for Drama Art [performing arts], Multimedia Institute [new media], Platforma 9,81 [architecture and media] and WHW [visual culture]. Throughout a three year period [2004-2006] the project develops a manifold of collaborative practices within the local and the international cultural scene and thus draw attention to the inadequacy of dominant cultural models to meet the challenges in a changed setting for cultural action. WHW published several books [Against Indifference selected essays by Renata Salecl, Hieroglyphs of the Future selected essays by Brian Holmes, Zagreb, 16/6/01 book of interviews by Hans Ulrich Obrist with ve Croatian artists, reader/catalogue for the What, How and for Whom exhibition with essays by Slavoj iek, Richard Barbrook, Boris Buden, Fredric Jameson, Renata Salecl, Charles Esche...] and regularly publishes Gallery Nova newspapers.

14

RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

CONTACTS

Kunsthalle Fridericianum Friedrichsplatz 18 34 117 Kassel, Germany www.fridericianum-kassel.de Siemens Arts Program Wittelsbacherplatz 2 80333 Munchen, Germany siemensartsprogram@siemens.com www.siemensartsprogram.com What, How and for Whom/WHW Baruna Trenka 4 10000 Zagreb, Croatia whw@mi2.hr

STARTING POINTS

15

APPROACHING DEADLINE:

page from chinese propaganda posters, 2005 taschen calendar