Sanja Horvatinčić | Institute of Art History, Zagreb (original) (raw)

Uploads

Papers by Sanja Horvatinčić

Bogdan Bogdanović's project for Jasenovac memorial complex, presented on 19 March 1963 in Četvrti... more Bogdan Bogdanović's project for Jasenovac memorial complex, presented on 19 March 1963 in Četvrti jul, the weekly magazine published by the Federal Union of Veterans of the Peoples' Liberation War of Yugoslavia.

Istraživanje spomenika iz razdoblja socijalizma u Hrvatskoj autorica je provela primjenom dvaju m... more Istraživanje spomenika iz razdoblja socijalizma u Hrvatskoj autorica je provela primjenom dvaju metodoloških pristupa koji se zasnivaju na pretpostavci o nužnosti uvida u cjelinu građe – što je omogućeno formiranjem korpusa s ukupno 1737 kataloških jedinica okupljenih u operativnoj bazi podataka – kao i o potrebi poznavanja društveno-povijesnog konteksta nastanka spomenika, temeljem čega je razrađen model dinamičkog polja produkcije spomeničke plastike, nastale u promatranom povijesnom razdoblju. Ove pretpostavke definirale su dva komplementarna metodološka pristupa – empirijsko istraživanje i katalogiziranje građe te historiografsko istraživanje konteksta njezina nastanka – koji određuju osnovnu strukturu doktorskog rada, podijeljenog na tri poglavlja. Nakon iznošenja ciljeva i hipoteza istraživanja, pojašnjena su teorijska polazišta na kojima je autorica zasnivala pristup povijesnoumjetničkom i kulturno-povijesnom fenomenu spomenika, dan je pregled korištenih izvora i dosadašnjih ...

Pojavnosti moderne skulpture u Hrvatskoj: protagonisti, radovi, konteksti, 2021

Prebacivanjem fokusa analize na dva atipična aspekta poslijeratne spomeničke produkcije – spomeni... more Prebacivanjem fokusa analize na dva atipična aspekta poslijeratne spomeničke produkcije – spomenike koji su predstavljali iskustva žena tijekom Drugoga svjetskog rata i one koje su osmislile i oblikovale žene – ova studija otvara kritički pogled na šire područje tema, načina prikazivanja i strukturalno-materijalnih uvjeta vezanih uz poslijeratnu memorijalnu produkciju u socijalističkoj Jugoslaviji, s posebnim fokusom na situaciju u Hrvatskoj. Željeli smo ukazati na načine na koje je „ženska strana“ dominantnog narativa o Drugom svjetskom ratu u socijalizmu konstruirana i predstavaljana u javnoj sferi kroz umjetničke i arhitektonske prakse. Takva perspektiva nije samo namijenjena kompenzaciji kritičnog izostanka empirijskih istraživanja vezanih uz reprezentaciju žena i njihovo umjetničko djelovanje u poslijeratnoj kiparskoj i/ili arhitektonskoj produkciji, već i kao epistemološka intervencija koja otvara nove kritičke uvide u cjelokupnu poslijeratnu memorijalnu produkciju, propitujući uspostavljene hijerarhije, zadane narative i kanone. Time se usložnjavaju naše spoznaje o izgradnji spomenika u razdoblju socijalizma te rafiniraju ideje umjetničkog tretmana spomeničke teme kroz reevaluaciju praksi kojima su dominirale žene, poput krajobrazne arhitekture. Drugim riječima, sagledano kroz prizmu ženskog doprinosa, naše znanje o memorijalnoj produkciji u Jugoslaviji nije samo obogaćeno motivima, narativima i djelima koja su često bila ignorirana ili podcijenjena, već se ovo specifično polje kulturne produkcije – prožeto patrijarhalno-modernističkim postulatima i kapitalističkim oblicima umjetničke proizvodnje – ujedno i kritički ocjenjuje.

U svoja arheološka istraživanja baštine Rui Gomes Coelho kreće iz kritičke pozicije s obzirom na ... more U svoja arheološka istraživanja baštine Rui Gomes Coelho kreće iz kritičke pozicije s obzirom na njezinu ulogu u izgradnji Zapadnog svijeta i konstituiranju suvremenih nacionalnih država te njezinu spregu sa strukturama moći. Tome suprotstavlja poimanje baštine kao procesa koji sukobljava različite političke pozicije. U razgovoru se dotaknuo glavnih teorija i metoda koje su pokrenule i oblikovale nove tendencije unutar polja heritologije, progovorio o poziciji i iskustvu arheologa u tom "disonantnom" polju te o istraživanju koje je proveo u Brazilu na bivšim plantažama kave proučavajući instituciju ropstva i posebno ulogu krajolika u njegovu održavanju kroz ono što naziva "senzornim režimom" ropstva. Usto, u razgovoru je tematizirano kolonijalno nasljeđe u javnom prostoru suvremenog Portugala, inicijative za njegovu dekolonizaciju te Coelhovo viđenje lokalnog protuhegemonijskog nasljeđa narodnooslobodilačke borbe.

RAD PO SKECIJAMA/WORK IN SECTIONS Dvorane/Lecture rooms: 12 (prizemlje/ground floor), 17 (prvi ka... more RAD PO SKECIJAMA/WORK IN SECTIONS Dvorane/Lecture rooms: 12 (prizemlje/ground floor), 17 (prvi kat/first floor), 18 (prvi kat/first floor), 28/4 (2. polukat/2 nd mezzanine), 28/5 (2. polukat/2 nd mezzanine) Po 15 minuta svako izlaganje i 10 minuta za raspravu nakon svakog izlaganja./Duration: 15 minutes per presentation and 10 minutes per discussion after every paper.

Analizom dosadasnjih istraživanja spomenicke plastike iz razdoblja socijalizma na podrucju Hrvats... more Analizom dosadasnjih istraživanja spomenicke plastike iz razdoblja socijalizma na podrucju Hrvatske uocava se niz problema koji otežavaju njezino ravnopravno ukljucivanje u povijesno- umjetnicke narative domaceg i europskog kiparstva druge polovice dvadesetog stoljeca. Kao jednu od pretpostavki za rjesavanje tih problema ovaj rad predlaže formulaciju cjelovitog, sustavnog modela njezine analize, interpretacije i valorizacije. Polazeci od temeljnih funkcija svakoga spomenika – simbolicke, utilitarne i estetske – model pretpostavlja da se pri interpretaciji spomenicke plastike, pored analize njezinih morfoloskih, formalnih i ikonografskih obilježja, promatra i utjecaj, odnosno uloga svih drustvenih i materijalnih cinitelja – narucitelja, autora, kriticara i korisnika – koji na razlicite nacine sudjeluju u stvaranju, odnosno održavanju spomenutih spomenickih funkcija u specificnom povijesno-umjetnickom i drustveno-politickom kontekstu socijalisticke Jugoslavije. Prijedlog cjelokupnog m...

Pojavnosti moderne skulpture u Hrvatskoj: protagonisti, radovi, konteksti, 2021

Ovogodišnji skup u sklopu manifestacije Dani arhitekturi u Istri nosi naziv BAŠTINA ODOZDO, a org... more Ovogodišnji skup u sklopu manifestacije Dani arhitekturi u Istri nosi naziv BAŠTINA ODOZDO, a organiziran je u suradnji Instituta za povijest umjetnosti Zagreb, Istarskog povijesnog društva i Društva arhitekata Istre. Dvodnevni međunarodni skup posvećen je kritičkim teorijama i pristupima te novim praksama istraživanja, obnove i upravljanja baštinom, s fokusom na njezine materijalne i nematerijalne segmente koji su marginalizirani ili neprepoznati unutar okvira dominantnog baštinskog diskursa. Sama tema nalazi se u sjecištu više različitih znanosti i disciplina, stoga je ovogodišnji skup susret stručnih osoba iz domene arheologije, povijesti, konzervatorstva i restauratorstva, povijesti umjetnosti, kulturologije i arhitekture koji će pokušati otvoriti široj javnosti pitanja uočavanja, interpretacije i očuvanja marginalizirane baštine, kao što su to poslijeratni grafiti u Istri, arhitektura Raše, drveni oltari u Istri, park skulptura u Sisku i N.O.B. spomenici arhitekte Zdenka Sile. Osim ovih primjera na skupu će sudjelovati i Rui Gomes Coelho sa Joukowsky Instituta za arheologiju i stari vijek pri Sveučilištu Brown, koji na primjerima suvremenih arheoloških istraživanja španjolskog građanskog rata ispituje odnos arheologije kao discipline i političke zajednice unutar koje djeluje, kao i Predrag Novaković profesor Odjela za arheologiju ljubljanskog sveučilišta, koji istražuje genezu i problematiku nacionalne arheologije.

Ovaj skup organiziran je u sklopu šireg projekta “Baština odozdo / Drežnica: Tragovi i sjećanja 1941-1945″, pokrenutog 2018. godine pod vodstvom Sanje Horvatinčić (Institut za povijest umjetnosti), a čiji je cilj upravo povezivanje različitih disciplina u svrhu uspostavljanja novog metodološkog pristupa materijalnoj kulturi i kulturnom naslijeđu suvremenog doba, zasnovanog na kritičkom čitanju samoga pojma kulturne baštine. Jedna od svrha samog skupa je povezivanje istarskih inicijativa, koje već nekoliko godina pokreću Istarsko povijesno društvo i Društvo arhitekata Istre, u širu diskusiju tog novog pristupa kulturnom naslijeđu.

Faced with growing practical issues of systematisation and supervision of the memorial boom that ... more Faced with growing practical issues of systematisation and supervision of the memorial boom that happened during the 1950s, as well as with theoretical and aesthetic concerns surrounding the fervent discussion about the new formal and
conceptual possibilities of memorialisation of Second World War on the territory of former Yugoslavia, the beginning of the 1960s has recently been recognised as the key milestone determining the future development of Yugoslav memory politics and memorial practices (Karge, 2010). The concern over the growing social, generational and ideological detachment from the authentic locations, objects and experiences of the War and the Revolution, resulted in the growing collaborative efforts (Veterans’ organizations, history, museums and heritage
protection institutions) to preserve both mental images and physical objects, that became central elements for individual and collective recreation of the Event (Badiou, 2006), that is, Peoples’ Liberation Struggle. By focusing, on the one hand, on new conservation practices of preserving authentic memorial objects and
landscapes, and, on the other, on new artistic strategies of the re-creation of absent elements in places of memory, I will discuss the role of the imaginary, immaterial aspect of Yugoslav WWII memorials. Although solidly constructed through various memory practices and media in the 1960s, this segment started to lose its socio-political potency and cultural significance along with the temporal distance and political alienation from the Events, caused by the gradual dissolution of the socialist state.

After the dissolution of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, ... more After the dissolution of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, memory politics of all of its former member states underwent radical revision and transformation. Although the newly formed nation state used different and often conflicting mechanisms, narratives, criteria and dynamics, the key ideological agenda behind all ofthese processes was the formation and/or strengthening of exclusive national sentiments.
They were accompanied by defamation of the main pillars of the former social, political and economic system, one of them being the belief in the unity of different nations and ethnicities
achieved during the joint antifascist struggle organized by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia during the WWII. One of the consequences of these processes was the complete or partial destruction of thousands of memorials dedicated to the socialist revolution and the events and protagonists of the antifascist struggle during the recent national and ethnic
conflicts of the early 1990s. This was reflected in the erasure and/or negligence of collective memory to antifascism as a positive social value, causing a long-term and still present crisis
of memory politics in Croatia. Only recently did the public meaning these memorials – historical, art-historical, anthropological, and political – become legitimate subject of public discourse, while their social reaffirmation has primarily been advocated through NGOs’ initiatives and artists’ projects. The paper will focus on two recent works by Croatian multimedia and performance artist Igor Grubić (Zagreb, 1969) evolving around the same central motif – various types and forms of memorial sculpture dedicated to the WWII antifascist resistance – in order to agitate and/or question individual and collective responsibility to positive legacy of the otherwise
stigmatized period of history. We shall analyze the use of different artistic strategies of Grubić’s reinterpretation of memorial sculpture as the media of collective memory: from
transparent, temporary interventions to urban memorial sculpture (2008), to the poetic visual reinterpretation of ruined and/or neglected memorial objects placed in natural landscapes, opening thus the question of the ability of contemporary observer to (re)associate the modernist idea of universal and metaphysical quality of these sculptures with their strong collective and ideological implications.

Odbor za podizanje spomenika u Jajincima 1958. godine raspisao je jugoslavenskinatječaj za idejni... more Odbor za podizanje spomenika u Jajincima 1958. godine raspisao je jugoslavenskinatječaj za idejni projekt spomenika žrtvama fašizma na mjestu masovnog gubilišta kraj Beograda, na kojem je tijekom Drugog svjetskog rata ubijeno 80 000 ljudi. Od šest prvonagrađenih i tri otkupljena rada,većinu natjecateljskih timovačinili suarhitekti, kipari, slikari i krajobrazni arhitekti iz Hrvatske. Analiza izabranih spomeničkih projekata injihovo smještaje u kontekst dotadašnje monumentalnespomeničke plastikeu domaćem i međunarodnom kontekstu ukazuju naznačajan odmak od uvriježenetipologije i formalnih obilježja spomeničkih rješenja,koje su obilježile prvu polovicu pedesetih godina na prostoru socijalističke Jugoslavije.S ciljem svladavanja tematski i prostorno iznimno zahtjevnog zadatka, kakvog je predstavljalo obilježavanje sjećanja na masovnu tragediju u Jajincima, umjetnički su timovi u velikoj mjeri posezaliza sintetskimshvaćanjem arhitektonskih, skulpturalnih i krajobraznih aspektata memorijalne plastike, kao i sugestivnim i kontemplativnim potencijalom apstraktnih skulpturalnih, arhitektonskih i likovnih formi. Iako pobjednički projekt Zdenka Kolacija, Koste Angeli Radovanija i suradnika nikada nije izveden, izložba natječajnih radova izazvala je obimnu javnu raspravu u kojoj su sudjelovala najistaknutija imena kulturnog i umjetničkog života Jugoslavije. Spomenute se rasprave podudaraju s aktualnom problematikom poslijeratnog spomeničkog žanra u Europi i svijetu, zbog koje će francuski teoretičar Bernard Ceysson povijest modernog spomenika pedesetih godina nazvati poviješću nemogućeg spomenika.Natječaj za spomenik u Jajincima predstavlja značajan trenutak u razvoju spomeničke plastike u bivšoj Jugoslaviji, kojiće utjecati na razvoj memorijalne plastike šezdesetih i sedamdesetih godina.

Social and political demands after new modes of transferring social memory, that had been present... more Social and political demands after new modes of transferring social memory, that had been present in the socialist Yugoslavia since the late 1950s, were partially manifested through the decline of traditional memorial types and gradual acceptance of new morphologies as well as stylistic and formal approaches to the memorials dedicated to the National Liberation War, Socialist revolution and workers’ movement. Comparable artistic strategies of expanding the field of public memorial sculpture are explained on chosen examples of memorials in the urban context in Croatia and those erected in Maribor during the 1960s and '70s.

The post-WWII crisis of artistic expression can be analysed as a consequence of collective war tr... more The post-WWII crisis of artistic expression can be analysed as a consequence of collective war trauma and individual artists’ experience with unspeakable human suffering and mass murders. The extent of this issue had been summed up in Adorno’s famous claim that writing poetry after Auschwitz was an act of barbarism. In practice, however, collective and individual need to remember, as well as political obligation to commemorate the victims, remained present in all post-war societies. Despite new interpretations of symbolic, aesthetic and utilitarian functions of a memorial, it also remained an important tool of manifesting political power by offering a “sacred” place of keeping war traumas alive.
The representation of war atrocities in socialist Yugoslavia in the medium of memorial sculpture was mainly focused the victims of the fascist occupational regimes and their local collaborators. Such commemorating practices also served as permanent reminders of the importance of the Yugoslav Partisan movement and the Socialist revolution for the liberation of the people, and as such, as the legitimization of the post-war political power of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
A frequent subject of the memorial sculpture representing the atrocities of the WWII in Yugoslavia was the practice of public hanging of the captives and innocent victims, which the enemy considered to be an efficient way of deterring the insurgents and thus weakening the strong antifascist resistance. By analysing different examples of sculptural and architectural treatment of the subject, located throughout the territory of former Yugoslavia, the aim of this paper is to define main artistic strategies used by sculptors and architects when approaching the difficult task of public mediation of the memory of war suffering: from the translation of the motif from photographic to sculptural medium (Valjevo, Opuzen), through different degrees of sculptural reduction and/or deconstruction of human figure (Ljubljana, Subotica), scenographic/architectural recreations of the site of the terror (Gospić, Zaječar), to the almost complete abstraction of the motif itself (Zagreb). The aforementioned difficulty of artistic representation of public hangings seem to have had resulted in the departure from the realistic treatment of human figure, and had let to the proliferation of formal approaches to the subject. Innovative sculptural treatment of such publicly sensitive and politically important subject, which often corresponded to artists’ latest experiments in the sculptural medium and resulted in some of their best public works, makes an important contribution to the understanding of the complex phenomenon of the development of memorial sculpture in Yugoslavia since the mid 1950’s.

Spomenik seems to be the most recent word of Croatian and other languages of former Yugoslavia wh... more Spomenik seems to be the most recent word of Croatian and other languages of former Yugoslavia which has entered English language. Originally, the term denotes any kind of architectural or sculptural work dedicated to important people and events, and is generally used for all historical periods and purposes, regardless of their artistic and/or political characteristics. However, what it recently seems to become associated with on the Internet is a specific art-historical sculptural phenomenon from the second half of the 20th century. Due to Yugoslav unaligned political position in the context of the Cold War, its official attitude toward Modernist aesthetics was of considerate political importance as it served as a visible and evident demonstration of political independence, as well as compliance with both sides. Therefore, many official state commissions of the second half of the 20th century resulted in a peculiar blend of shape and content: while featuring High Modernist aesthetics and formal repertoire of contemporary Western art, they celebrated the defeat of Fascism and the victory of Communist ideas. By analysing contemporary semantic shift – semantic narrowing – of the term spomenik which seems to be happening on various foreign websites (from highly specialized to trivial ones), my paper will try to observe problems of the Western perception of Central Eastern European art of the socialist period, and on a more general level, the problem of the western perception of the so-called peripheral modernities.

Art magazin Kontura, 2021

Razgovor s Vinkom Srhojem, Sanjom Horvatinčić i Borisom Ljubičićem vodila Nevenka Šarčević

The seminar treats two distinctive art phenomena in Yugoslavia and its successor states: performa... more The seminar treats two distinctive art phenomena in Yugoslavia and its successor states: performance art and memorial monuments associated with World War II. Our discussion deals with the entire period from the end of the 19th century to the present, focusing on the 1960s and 1970s, when both practices were at their high point.

The seminar’s primary subject comprises the monumental memorial works dedicated to events Jasenovac, photo: Damil Kalogjerafrom World War II. These monuments can take very different forms and resist any uniform definition. The most ambitious memorializing projects may incorporate numerous structures of varying purposes, including cultural and regional centres (e.g. the Memorial Centre in Kolašin or the Monument at Petrova Gora) or make sweeping changes to the landscape (e.g. the well-marked and well-ordered system of paths for strolling and recreation that constitute the Path of Remembrance and Comradeship in Ljubljana). Today especially, it seems, we are fascinated by monumental objects of extraordinary dimensions that tend toward very purified forms or abstraction and that are situated in remote nature (e.g. the monuments in Tjentište and on Mrakovica Peak on Mt. Kozara). The tradition of building such monuments is very much alive even today, only the ideological principles behind their creation are different (e.g. the Memorial Park in Teharje and the not-yet-completed Monument to the Victims of All Wars in Ljubljana).

Another very impressive chapter of Yugoslav art can be seen in the former country’s diverse performance-art practices. Yugoslav performance artists (such as Marina Abramović, the OHO group, Sanja Iveković, and others) were well informed and very well connected internationally; important foreign representatives of this art form (such as Gina Pane, Ana Mendieta, Joseph Beuys, and Walter De Maria) also came to Yugoslavia on visits or for art events. While it is extremely difficult to find a common denominator in Yugoslav performance art, it eventually acquired the general label of an explicitly political art. In relation to our topic, two points seem interesting: first, a number of key performance artists came from the families of prominent state officials or personages in post-war Yugoslavia, and, second, this fact is explicitly underscored in their biographies.

The juxtaposition of monumental memorial projects and performance art may seem unusual – at first glance they have nothing in common. The differences in their media, their intentions, and their audiences are all too apparent. But analysis also reveals a number of convergences and similarities: both practices were at their height at practically the same time; both contain strong aspects of ritual and very actively include the body; both forms possess a great ability to stir intense emotions and establish identity; and both reach for extremes in ways that are entirely calculated and deliberate.

After the collapse of Yugoslavia, the World War II monuments often became targets of verbal and physical attacks, but in recent years a more positive fascination with these works has been persistently on the rise. Maybe, for many, the fascination comes from the monuments’ extraordinary appearance, which at times works in connection with a Romantic delight in socialist ruins. Some, however, are puzzled by how it was possible to establish modernist principles on such a mass scale and achieve such remarkable results specifically in the practice of public monumental memorials, which was generally not inclined toward the broad use of consistently implemented modernist methods – and this in a time and place that today is often labelled totalitarian. Given that the commissioners of such works were as much “responsible” for them as the artists were, the question is: why did they act as they did?

Beti Žerovc

Beti Žerovc, editor; organizers: Department of Art History of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana and Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory

Etnološka tribina, 2019

The book presents a comprehensive overview of the vast production of monuments in socialist Yugos... more The book presents a comprehensive overview of the vast production of monuments in socialist Yugoslavia (1945–91) dedicated to the antifascist People's Liberation Struggle in the Second World War and the socialist revolution. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, these monuments have been subject to various fates, from neglect and physical destruction to global fame generated by the high-modernist visual appeal of a number of them. But the full scope, wide-ranging diversity, and complex context of Yugoslav monument making, including its various contradictions, have remained largely unexplored.

The book offers a thorough and interdisciplinary exploration of this phenomenon and a rich visual material to examine its key characteristics and specificities: What memorial practices and commemorative traditions preceded the development of monument-making in socialism? Who commissioned these monuments and how did Yugoslav cultural and memory politics influence their production? Who were their authors and what defined their formal and typological features? How was Yugoslav monument production related to comparative efforts abroad? What commemorative practices developed around monuments? How is this legacy evaluated and received today, both in the post-Yugoslav successor states and internationally?