24:47 min.
Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery
Work on right: Re-written page 55 from the book “Marina Abramović: objects, performance, video, sound”. Essay by David Elliott named “Balkan Baroque”, with intervention by Prlja in pencil. Black and white print, pencil, 50x35cm
Photographs Documentation of performance, by Nada Prlja, 2009
Newspapers, cleaning towels and white spirit. 8 hours.
Photographic documentation of the performance recorded by 10 photographs (of which two are presented here). Black and white photograph, frame, 35x25cm each. Photo by Nada Zgank
“International Baroque” was performed at the Museum of the City of Ljubljana – Vzigalica, Ljubljana, as a part of Re.Act.Feminism Festival organised by Mesto Zensk, Lubljana, 2009. /// Photo from Remastered: the art of the appropriation: 2017©Jorit Aust /// Other work in the image: Ciprian Mureşan, Leap into the Void, after Three Seconds, 2004
International Baroque (After Marina Abramovic) is a performance that looks at the mass media, commenting directly on the purpose and content of daily newspapers. The project addresses the amount of negative events that are reported by newspapers on a daily basis, which is accepted without much reaction from the political or social circles.
International Baroque (After Marina Abramovic) (2009) is a performance which re-enacts Marina Abramovic’s ‘Balkan Baroque’ (1997) performance. The project ‘International Baroque’, strives in a symbolic sense (as in Marina Abramovic’s 1997 work), to ‘clean up’ or ‘wash out’ the bitter reality from society, by ‘physically erasing’ all the ‘bad’ contents from the newspapers. The performance lasted a whole day and the photographs of which this work consists, are documentation of the same.
The documentary photographs of the performance are introduced with an insert from David Elliott’s “Balkan Baroque” essay, which introduces Marina Abramovic’s early life, her relation to her partisan parents, etc [images bellow].
On re-written biographical passage from the above mentioned book, Prlja erases and adds with a pencil information personally related to her own life, her relation to her grandparents, likewise veteran partisans. Intriguingly, the remaining (unedited) part of the text written by Elliott could equally refer to Prlja’s personal history and appears as if it were written about her. With this act, Prlja emphasises the similar destiny of many post WWII partisan families in region of Ex-Yugoslavia.
Text added by Prlja:
Prlja was born in Sarajevo, her link to Montenegro are through her grandfather, who, as a result of the six bullet wounds in his body, was a war-hero who became a general.
Nada lived in nice house, but as a young child she was not told that her grandfather had spent three years imprisoned at ‘Goli Otok’, a notorious gulag prison where pro SSSR members of Yugoslav Communist Party were sent during and after 1948. Nada, as a child, was led to believe that her grandfather has been imprisoned for telling an anecdote about a certain lady farting at Communist Party Gathering.
Nada, as a child, never asked where he was sent or for how long had been there, no one ever talked about it, and no one ever provided answered to such questions. However, she did once asked: ‘Who was the lady that farted?’. Her father Vladimir only smiled.
The video documentation of the performance
Documentation of the performance:
Performance
Newspapers, cleaning towels and white spirit. 8 hours.
Photographic documentation of the performance recorded by 10 photographs. Black and white photograph, frame, 35x25cm each. Photo by Nada Zgank
“International Baroque” was performed at the Museum of the City of Ljubljana – Vzigalica, Ljubljana, as a part of Re.Act.Feminism Festival organised by Mesto Zensk, Lubljana, 2009.
Performance
Newspapers, cleaning towels and white spirit. 8 hours.
Photographic documentation of the performance recorded by 10 photographs. Black and white photograph, frame, 35x25cm each. Photo by Nada Zgank
“International Baroque” was performed at the Museum of the City of Ljubljana – Vzigalica, Ljubljana, as a part of Re.Act.Feminism Festival organised by Mesto Zensk, Lubljana, 2009.
Performance
Newspapers, cleaning towels and white spirit. 8 hours.
Photographic documentation of the performance recorded by 10 photographs. Black and white photograph, frame, 35x25cm each. Photo by Nada Zgank
“International Baroque” was performed at the Museum of the City of Ljubljana – Vzigalica, Ljubljana, as a part of Re.Act.Feminism Festival organised by Mesto Zensk, Lubljana, 2009.
Performance
Newspapers, cleaning towels and white spirit. 8 hours.
Photographic documentation of the performance recorded by 10 photographs. Black and white photograph, frame, 35x25cm each. Photo by Nada Zgank
“International Baroque” was performed at the Museum of the City of Ljubljana – Vzigalica, Ljubljana, as a part of Re.Act.Feminism Festival organised by Mesto Zensk, Lubljana, 2009.
Exhibition History:
Performance:
Museum of the City of Ljubljana – Vzigalica, Ljubljana. 2009
As documentation:
viennacontemporary Art Fair, 2016
Press coverage:
/ Kazaliste, Theatre monthly magazine, Title: “ Re -performans” kao re -enactment, re -construction, re -playing i re -doing : ili o tome kako “čovjek ne može dva puta napraviti samoubojstvo”, by Suzana Marjanić, 2009, [CRO]
/ Zarez, Title: “ Dosta Globalne Crne Kronike”, by Suzana Marjanić, 2009, [CRO]
