Daniel Grúň

The requirements of the national specifics of creation still lingering in the art of the 1960's from the inter-war period appear in the polemics regarding the form and function of Slovak plastic art. In the interpretations of the new plastic art forms, the influence of the domestic tradition as opposed to the universalism of internationally situated concepts was emphasized within various limits. The extensive corpus of essays of writer and influential intellectual, Dominik Tatarka are first and foremost. Plastic art, according to Tatarka, creates the prerequisites for the common understanding for all mankind through universally valid forms and signs. It should evoke the respect of memory through the representation of protective deities and as signs of the national pride objectified to preserve the metaphysical dimension and pathos of the national myth. In the course of the second half of the 1960's, Tatarka elaborated the concept of national culture, which he developed in hi...

The aims of this essay are to examine some of the key principles of 1960s artistic practice as defined in the documents by artists and art theorists of that time in Czechoslovakia. The essay also aims to draw parallels between artistic disciplines and to search for their common poetics. As part of the book titled Archeology of Art Criticism. Slovak Art of the 1960 and its interpretations the essay will be published later this fall.

Abstract The study examines some questions concerning interpretations of Slovak art in the 1960s, employing the analysis of essays by the writer Dominik Tatarka (1913–1989) on fine art. I have chosen these texts, which tie into the tradition of irrational, emphatic writing and the interpretation of artworks, because their analysis unveils the workings of the national myth on visual art. Reliving the myths linked to popular narratives marks out the cultural space of Central Europe. Put in more general terms, I will address the specific relation between modernism and anachronism, particularly between progressive humanist thinking on modern culture on the one hand and national mythology on the other hand.

Ausstellungsfuhrer erscheint anlasslich der Ausstellung "Poesie & Performance. Die osteuropaische Perspektive" bzw. "Poetry & Performance. The Eastern European Perspective", in Shedhalle, Zurich, Schweiz, 16.09 - 28.10.2018

Bratislava-based art historian and curator Daniel Grúň researches the legacy of the neo-avant-garde movements of Central Europe. In his essay, he begins by analysing the work Vodná hudba (Water Music), a now-legendary musical happening created by the Slovak artist Milan Adamčiak (1946 - 2017) and two others in a Bratislava swimming pool in 1970.
Grúň goes on to explore the archival material associated with this and
other works by Adamčiak, paying particular attention to the modes
and strategies of documentation (and their political context) as
well as to the interdependence of documentary/notational formats
and artistic forms. Among other things, Adamčiak’s art provides Grúň
with a case study for discussing the complex questions related to the
“performativity” of documentation and the reasons for the selfhistoricization of Central European neo-avant-garde artists.

Sfidările comunicaţionale ale arhivei lui Július Koller Compoziția materialului și dispunerea unei arhive continuă ideile și ati-tudinile pe care Július Koller le-a formulat la sfârșitul anilor 1960, în manifestul său Cultura Cosmoumanistică 1. Notele din manuscrisele lui Koller deseori pun accent pe lucrurile simple: " leagă omul de materiale, de lucruri oarecare, folosite în mod curent ". Procesele și ritualurile vieții personale erau înţelese ca stări şi efecte ale fenomenelor sociale: " o demonstrație a vieții mele ca semnal ". El a identificat aceste practici cu ceea ce numea cultura vieții. Această cultură, insista artistul, nu este delimitată în timp sau în spațiu, dar funcționează în mod activ prin remodelarea vieții într-un joc cultural cu reguli comune. " Jocul meu nu se termină niciodată; este jucat în mod continuu, într-un ritm și cu o intensitate nedefinite " 2. Prin urmare, o parte esențială a activității artis-tice a lui Koller este orientată spre cultura vieții de zi cu zi, către lucruri de consum zilnic, etichetarea și destinația lor după nume, semn de întrebare, acronimele U.F.O, sau inițialele J. K. şi, nu în ultimul rând, către acumularea de documente. La începutul anilor 1970, Jozef Kroutvor a descris transformarea ameţitoare a artei pe care Koller o urmărea în lucrarea sa: " Se pare că noua artă nu mai este într-o mare măsură tran-scendență estetică, ci, mai degrabă, o comunicare, o manifestare non-metaforică a realității. Comunicarea eficientă, nu frumusețea, asta transmite forma. Aspectul formal nu contează: ceea ce contează este calitatea de comunicare și capacitatea sa de asociere ".

THE PERFORMATIVE WRITINGS OF MILAN ADAMČIAK

The socialist Czechoslovakia of the liberal 1960s saw the implementation not only of the avant-garde vision of programmed art, inspired by contemporary scientific and technological achievements, but also of a new role of the creator comparing the poet’s consciousness to a machine. In the experimental poetry and graphic notations of Milan Adamčiak (1946), performativity and writing meld into one whole. The essay aims to pinpoint the most important impulses that led the artist to realize writing as action. It provides an answer to the question why Adamčiak’s actions were mediated by graphical notation and not by other means. In the study I am using the term performative document and relating it to the conception of the archive, as it is the medium of archive in which Adamčiak’s work has been stored and made accessible. The vast majority of works by Milan Adamčiak, be it graphic scores or experimental poetry, are instructions for further action and their meaning lies in their subsequent reconfiguration and reviving. In the text I am also pointing to the current possibilities of work with the experimental heritage of this unique representative of conceptual art and graphic notation.
KEYWORDS Milan Adamčiak – Experimental Poetry – Graphic Notation – Performative Document – Archive – Self-Historization – Action Art – Fluxus – Eastern Europe

This essay explores the significance of an artist’s self-history, as well as the sort of
documents that become the “art archive”, and the distinction between an artist’s
archive and official institutionalized archives. It is outlined as a comparative study
of artists’ archives in the former Eastern Europe, their uses and role in writing
art history, focusing on the practices of artists in the 1970s and 1980s. The author
introduces the notion of para-institution or parallel institution which describes
archivist practices of alternative artists from the former Eastern Europe. He also
discusses several archives: Lia Perjovschi, the Museum of American Art, IRWIN,
Atrpool, KwieKulik, and Július Koller in comparison with archives such as Group
Material, PAD/D, and Tucumán arde.

White Space in White Space tells the story of a legendary project and key work of the Eastern European neo-avant-garde, of which Kontakt Collection is holding a representative body of works. Initiated by a collective of Slovak artists — Stano Filko, Miloš Laky, and Ján Zavarský in 1973 and continuously evolving over the course of almost ten years, the book provides the first comprehensive documentation of this complex and most intriguing art project. It examines all of the particular venues and occasions on which the project was exhibited (in Brno, Bratislava, Budapest, Paris, Warsaw, Belgrade, and Kassel), and brings together the collected manifestos as well as artists’ writings, and traces the project’s further transformation in the practice of Stano Filko as a solo artist.
A selection of newly commissioned essays approaches the White Space project from a variety of contemporary perspectives. A recent conversation with conceptual artist and renowned theatre scenographer, Ján Zavarský, its only surviving originator, as well as a detailed timeline complement this first comprehensive mapping of the project. All texts (in English) are accompanied by rich photographic documentation of the various stages and additional visual materials. The graphic design was conceived and executed by Soybot – Marie Fegerl, Gerhard Jordan.
Essays by: Noit Banai, László Beke, Ján Budaj, Ješa Denegri, Stano Filko, Daniel Grúň, Lisa Grünwald, Vít Havránek, Christian Höller, Július Koller, Miloš Laky, Alex Mlynárčik, Boris Ondreička, Kathrin Rhomberg, Milan Šimečka, Tomáš Štrauss, Grzegorz Sztabiński, Jiří Valoch, Ján Zavarský

Edited by: Daniel Grúň, Christian Höller, and Kathrin Rhomberg

Book published on the occasion of the exhibition Július Koller One Man Anti Show in mumok / Vienna. Managing editor Manuel Millautz; Texts: Daniel Grúň, Cristina Freire, Reiner Fuchs, Aurel Hrabušický, Karola Kraus, Joanna Mytkowska, Kathrin Rhomberg, Georg Schöllhammer. Graphic design: VIER5/Paris.

ARCHEOLOGY OF ART CRITICISM.
SLOVAK ART OF THE 1960’s AND ITS INTERPRETATIONS
Th e period of the 1960’s in Czechoslovakia represents a special position
in the history visual art of 20th century. It is frequently characterized
as the golden age, a period of creative freedom and a fl ourishing
of all fi elds of arts that crossed the boundaries and conventions of
the traditionally defi ned notion of art. It is usually described as the
beginning phase of pluralism in art or as the key period in the development
of post-war modernism. In this period not only the processes
with a deep impact on creative activity appeared, but also in the entire
political and social sphere of Czechoslovakia. We can follow these
processes in visual art in terms of the continuation and completion
of the eff orts of the inter-war avant-gardes, and also as an outcome
of repetitions and returns to their creative strategies. From another
perspective, the issues of the sharpening of paradoxes, internal tensions
and contradictory conceptions within the framework of postwar
modernism open up for us. In spite of the fact that it is a relatively
short period, it is richly diff erentiated internally, by numerous layers
of opinions and in terms of visual art production, remarkably central
period in the history of Slovak visual art after 1945.

The etymological kinship of the word amateur with the Latin amator (one who loves again and again) makes it possible to view art as a widely accessible cultural practice. Without seeking perfection or competitive status, the amateur takes prolonged delight in the chosen activity, thus giving substance to the idea of the anti-bourgeois artist. Examining the art worlds of mid- to late Socialism necessitates considering so called “parallel spheres of action” – those that lie in between official and unofficial art. I will examine three artists-organizers and compare their cultural practice: Jiří Valoch, Milan Adamčiak and Július Koller. Each of them comes from a different field – while Valoch was poet and exhibition maker, Adamčiak a musicologist and action artist, Koller’s point of departure was painting. What connects them all is that they were engaged in amateur art. Július Koller’s programmatic amateurism is not merely a departure from the affirmative and conjunctural art of late modernism, instead he bases the continuum of the culture of life on a qualitatively different level in comparison with the approach of his avant-garde colleagues of the 1960s. The continuum of enlightenment activity which Koller called Confrontations (Antihappening), is not revolutionary, and indeed it is not even entirely oppositional. The reason is that Koller identified with the task of the cultural-enlightenment worker. Unobtrusively he thus penetrated the state system of cultural enlightenment, aiming to realize within it his own program of cultural synthesis and “confrontation with contemporary popular amateur work in visual art.”