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Alenka Gregorič
Nothing New in the West, neither in the East
While people in Belgrade still live from hand to mouth, the people in
the Austrian capital are thinking of how to awake their fellow townsfolk
as regards the danger of the conservative policies of Jörg Haider.
Vienna, a town of Baroque style palaces, porcelain and creme cakes, is
rich with galleries and museums, a great number of which deal with contemporary
art. The four day visit to the formerly strong capital of art (today merely
one of the centres within the cultural production network) represented
a welcomed and interesting experience for all of us who visited it within
the frame of the World of Art, course for curators of contemporary art.
We visited large museums as well as a number of small galleries, the common
points of all being contemporary art and the experience so well known
within culture - survival. How much money, how many employees and especially
how to survive under the new government and the new regime were typical
questions we asked. The image of the contemporary art production was becoming
clear, for in the everyday rush from one gallery (or museum) to another
we managed to compile a mosaic from our premonitions and that little knowledge
we brought with us. Before each trip we received some texts from the organisers
and leaders of the course which enabled us to leave for Belgrade and Vienna
with a certain amount of information. However, the most valuable experience
during our first "Vienna" trip was the round table, which we
(the guests) thought of, for it linked to the research theme which was
at the time already becoming the main attention of our final course product
- the exhibition. Activist operation within the cultural - political streams
in Austria has an especially great meaning as regards the political changes
in the recent past. Get to Attack is one of the most important resistance
movements at this moment and the fact that is most interesting is that
at that opportunity people from those organisations stepped into contact
for the first time. The discussion brought forth valuable information
to us as well as our debaters, however, I can not state the same for our
Belgrade visit.
Art and politics was the theme of our visit of this formerly so important
capital, which today functions as an "old widow hiding its age beneath
a whole pile of make-up". The lectures by theoreticians, artists
and members of art groups, as well as guest from Croatia and Slovenia
took place every day. The hospitality of the organisers and students,
who visit the School of History and Theory of Images (where the lectures
took place) did not surprise us for the idea of 'brotherhood and equality'
has not been lost. The art scene of the 90's in Serbia, or to be more
precise in Belgrade was presented to us through lectures, visits to museums,
galleries and art centers. Miloševic's government has had a great influence
on the creative field of fine arts, even though I was under the impression
that some people are too quick at marking a simple demonstration or throwing
eggs onto one of the government buildings as an artistic action (the latter
is done by our secondary school graduates every year, and yet nobody declares
this as a work of art). However, this should not be generalised to the
operations of all artistic groups in the Serbian repressive political
regime of the last ten years, out of which I would like to draw special
attention to the groups Škart and Led art, the operations of which were
presented to us in great detail. In Belgrade we also had a round table
on the last day, however, it differed greatly to the Viennese experience.
The discussion turned into a war of words which did not bring us (the
listeners) any special benefit, maybe (read sincerely) only a great deal
of neurosis. An experience like this is not to be neglected, for it is
one of the many that a person brings from such travels. Some experience
proves to be useful, while other seems to be a complete waste of time
- depending on the viewpoint, the choice is always there.
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