LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz · Improved Partisan Monument (Kragujevac), 2001 Improved Partisan Monument...
Transcript of LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz · Improved Partisan Monument (Kragujevac), 2001 Improved Partisan Monument...
LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz
LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, A-4021 Linz, Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1
Tel: +43 (0)732.7070-3600 Fax: +43 (0)732.7070-3604 www.lentos.at
DV
R-N
um
mer
00
02
85
2
Information Sheet
MARKO LULIĆ
Futurology
30 June until 10 September 2017
2
Content
Exhibition Facts ………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Press Text …………………………………………………………………………………… 5
Biography .……………………………………………………………………………………. 6
Exhibition Booklet…………………………………………………………………………………… 7
Press Images…………………………………………………………………………………… 19
3
Exhibition Facts
Exhibition Title MARKO LULIĆ. Futurology
Exhibition Period 30 June until 10 September 2017
Opening Thursday, 29 June 2017, 7 pm
Press Conference Thursday, 29 June 2017, 10:00 am
Exhibition Venue LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz
Curators/Concept Wilfried Kuehn
Exhibition Architecture KUEHN MALVEZZI
Exhibits about 90 works from the artist Marko Lulić (Sculptures, large-scale
installations, video, posters, lettering, and works in public space)
Publication The catalogue Marko Lulić. Futurology is published by Verlag für moderne
Kunst to coincide with the exhibition and features a foreword by Hemma
Schmutz and texts by Wilfried Kuehn, Branka Benčić and Jörg Heiser
(300 pages, richly illustrated with colour photographs, German/English), € 29
Contact Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1, 4020 Linz, Tel. +43(0)732/7070-3600;
[email protected], www.lentos.at
Opening Hours Tue–Sun 10 am to 6 pm, Thur 10 am to 9 pm, Mon closed
Admission € 8; concessions € 6
Press Contact Clarissa Ujvari, T +43(0)732.7070.3603, [email protected]
4
Available at the Press Conference:
Hemma Schmutz, Director of the Museum
Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for the City of Linz
Wilfried Kuehn, Curator
Marko Lulić, Artist
5
Press Text
For his first mid-career survey exhibition in Austria, Marko Lulić, assisted by the curator Wilfried Kuehn, has
designed an overview of his work.
Sculpture, large-scale installations, video, posters, lettering, and works in public space are the artist’s
preferred media, which he will bring together in a completely new constellation in the exhibition space.
Utopian aspects of the twentieth century are analyzed, translated and queried here. Architecture and
display, central themes in his work, become the means of a restaging in the museum.
Since 2000, Lulić has been investigating Yugoslavian and International Modernism. He addresses the
relationships of form and ideology and the relation between body and representation in different political
contexts.
Since the late 1990s Marko Lulić has exhibited in Austria and around the world, most recently at the Chicago
Architecture Biennial and in the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles. His work has been
distinguished with many awards. The artist, born in 1972 in Vienna, lives and works in Vienna.
6
Biography
Marko Lulić is a Vienna-based artist, whose work is concerned with the intersection of architectural
modernism, ideology and aesthetics. He addresses the relation between body and representation in different
political contexts. Lulić has remade a number of modernist monuments, as well as reactivated them in some
form by using those public sculptures as reference and/or location of his performances.
He has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, New
York; Douglas F. Cooley Gallery, Reed College, Portland, Oregon; MAK, Vienna; MAK Center for Art and
Architecture, Los Angeles; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Kunsthalle Vienna,
Triangle Project Space, San Antonio, Texas; Office for Contemporary Art (OCA), Oslo; Migros Museum of
Contemporary Art, Zurich; 21er Haus/Belvedere, Vienna; Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; Museum of
Contemporary Art, Belgrade; Kunstverein Heilbronn; Oldenburger Kunstverein; Kunstverein Arnsberg;
Salzbuger Kunstverein; Grazer Kunstverein; Bawag Foundation, Vienna; MACRO Testaccio, Rome; Fondazione
Morra Greco, Naples; Erich Hauser Stiftung, Rottweil; Kunsthalle St. Gallen and Frankfurter Kunstverein. His
work was included in The Biennale of Sydney; the Swiss Sculpture Exhibition, Biel / Bienne; the October
Salon, Belgrade and the Chicago Architecture Biennial.
August 2017 his work will be presented at the Frestas Triennial, Sorocaba, Brazil. In recent years he has also
curated several exhibitions at the Secession, Vienna; Siemens Arts Program and the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Belgrade. He won several awards such as the Kardinal König Kunstpreis, the Award of the
Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation and the Erich Hauser Foundation Award. For five years he
has taught at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Lulić is represented by Gabriele Senn Gallery.
7
Exhibiton Booklet
8
SPACE STAGING / EPILOGUE / MOVEMENT
Sitespecifić, 2009
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
“Site-specific” is a term in the theory of art that typically refers to sculptural works aiming to establish
a close relationship with the site to which they are affixed or where they are installed. Such
sculptural works often result from explicit commissions to create a work of art for a specific site.
Sitespecifić came into being in 2009 for an art project originally destined for the facade of
backerstrasse4 in Vienna. Lulić focuses attention on how the word is spelt: the last c has the same
accent that is also to be found in the artist’s name – for Lulić a tongue-in-cheek reflection on his own
identity. In addition, similar to the work Fragment of a Modernist Monument Made to Fit the Witte de
With, what we get here is an ironic questioning of “site-specific” as a technical term. Mounted in the
LENTOS’s main stairwell, the work is brought up to date and the approach to the exhibition is
charged with additional significance.
Posters, 1994–2017
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Featuring posters and various PR material such as invitations and envelope designs, this hoarding
presents a bird’s eye view of the artist’s exhibitions and projects. Ever since his student days
posters have been an important part of Lulić’s artistic production. Far from being an unwanted
additional task or just a laboured attempt to pitch his work, these posters are a principled aspect of
his practice. This overview of his posters and other printed matter is designed to facilitate the
visitors’ approach to Lulić’s work. Themes that are relevant for his work are spelt out here as is the
date of their first appearance. The pivotal importance of language and staging becomes immediately
manifest.
Monument to Movement, 2013–2016
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Language and text are core elements of Lulić’s work as an artist. Monument to Movement opens up
the possibility of several distinct interpretations, including
a monument to movement per se,
a monument to a movement, in the political sense of the word or
an immobile, static monument is being transformed into something mobile.
9
It is left to the observer to decide which interpretation makes the most sense. All three – and there
are of course others as well – are perfectly adequate. What becomes apparent here is that games
are being played with meaning and that they form a thread running through the artist’s oeuvre.
Traditional interrelationships change and objects, pictures or concepts open up for a new reading.
Here an artistic technique is seen at work that is central to Lulić’s work: he transfers objects to a new
environment or disrupts their traditional use in order to charge a given reality that we believe is
utterly familiar to us with newmeaning.
PENTHOUSE / HALUDOVO HOTEL
Hart und weich Nr.1 [Hard and Soft No.1], 2002
Hart und weich Nr.2 [Hard and Soft No.2], 2002
A Shelter from a Sunny Day, 2003
Collection of the MAK Museum fur angewandte Kunst, Wien
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Dejan Karaklajić and Jovan Aćin
Mi neprodajemo holivud [We Don’t Sell Hollywood], 1972
16mm film, transferred to video
Yugoslav Film Archive, Belgrade
Three installations related to the Haludovo hotel complex are on display at the LENTOS. Opened in
1972, this hotel complex was located in Malinska on the Croatian island of Krk at a time when
Croatia was still part of communist, but non-aligned Yugoslavia. Haludovo was a joint venture
involving a local selfmanaged company and the American Bob Guccione, founder and editor of the
soft porn magazine Penthouse. That such a joint venture was possible in the first place goes to
show what a position on the political chessboard non-aligned Yugoslavia occupied at the time: as a
communist country it was nevertheless outside the Eastern Bloc. Lulić created several installations
that refer to architectural fragments of the hotel complex, which was originally designed by Boris
Magaš: the wooden ceiling of the hotel bar, the concrete open-air swimming pool and its sun roof
are all transformed into sculptural installations. Lulić’s installations are presented together with a
short, Mi neprodajemo holivud [We Don’t Sell Hollywood], which documents the opening of the hotel
complex. In it locals from the island rub shoulders with representatives of the international jetset,
10
including Penthouse Girls, and local Communist politicians and staff members of the hotel hobnob
with the capitalist editor of Penthouse, who is addressed as Comrade Guccione.
What was uppermost in the artist’s mind for this group of works was more than formal
considerations. In addition to aesthetic and spatial aspects, Lulić addresses here the ideological
background that exerts such a powerful influence on form. He started his research on Haludovo at a
time long before Yugoslav modernism became a catchword in the international art discourse. Lulić
deals here with modernity, ideology, the Cold War, body politics and economy in a project that
articulates itself in several spatial works on display at the LENTOS as installations: Hart und weich
Nr.1 [Hard and Soft No.1], Hart und weich Nr.2 [Hard and Soft No.2] and A Shelter from a Sunny
Day.
MODERNE/MODERNITY IN YU
Improved Partisan Monuments
Improved Partisan Monument (Kozara), 2001/2017
Improved Partisan Monument (Kragujevac), 2001
Improved Partisan Monument (Kosmaj, polychromatic), 2005/2010
Improved Partisan Monument (Kosmaj), 2005/2016
Metallic, 2002
Improved Partisan Monument (Jasenovac), 2002
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist, Private collection, Berlin
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Collection Neff, Frankfurt
evn collection, Maria Enzersdorf, Austria
Abstract sculptures found in various locations in former Yugoslavia served Lulić as points of
departure for his Improved Partisan Monument. These communist monuments, designed to
commemorate antifascist resistance, underwent a metamorphosis in Lulić’s hands that deprived
them of their monumentality and their original materiality. An excellent case in point is Improved
Partisan Monument (Jasenovac), an orange chipboard sculpture based on the monument at the
Jasenovac Memorial. The Memorial is grey, absolutely huge and marks the site of the largest
concentration camp on Croatian soil in World War II. Designed by architect Bogdan Bogdanović and
cast in concrete, it was erected in 1966 in memory of all those who were held captive or murdered
11
there by the fascist Ustasha regime. Relying on an abstract formal language, Bogdanović kept the
figurative sculptural style of Socialist Realism at bay and invoked instead the modernism of pre-war
avant-gardes. Lulić analyses the characteristics of these monuments and demonstrates that there is
no single modernity, but many different modernities. In the case of Yugoslavia its specific form of
modernity had to do with the country’s geopolitical location: the proximity to artistic developments
outside the Eastern Bloc tied in nicely with the anti-Stalinist policy of the Communist founder of
Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito (1945–1980). Tito was not only President of Yugoslavia, but also
Secretary General of the global Movement of Non-Aligned States from 1961 onward. It was the
Third Way of non-alignment that seemed to hold out the promise for Yugoslavia to be able to steer
clear of both the American and the Soviet military and economic blocs. This put Yugoslav artists into
a position where they could travel freely and cultivate direct contacts with both West and East
European colleagues, get to know their work and develop their own formal language, which is in
evidence in many partisan monuments.
Bife Tito, 2001
Belvedere, Vienna
“Bife” is the Croatian word for “buffet”. In addition, it serves as one of the synonyms for “pub” so that
Bife Tito might also be translated as “Tito’s Pub”. Even without the title, the height of the object
makes it strongly reminiscent of the bar in a pub. The bar takes the form of one half of the bridge
that has linked Croatia’s mainland with the island of Krk since 1980. The length of the bridge – 1,450
metres – and its self-supporting concrete arch were celebrated as an architectural achievement at
the time. Lulić transforms Tito’s technologically advanced concrete bridge, which, incidentally, is
currently being refurbished, into a bar made of medium-density fibreboard. Both the title and the
object itself can be read as a reference to a defunct system, whose remains are still
extant, awaiting discussion. Bife Tito was put on display for the first time in 2001 in Atelier Augarten,
where Lulić was in charge of the themed room “Kunst und Kalter Krieg” [Art and the Cold War] of the
exhibition Objekte. Skulptur in Österreich nach 45
[Objects. Sculpture in Austria after 45].
12
Entertainment Center Mies (orange), 2003
Walter, 2003/2017
Private collection, Berlin
As in Improved Partisan Monuments, Lulić focuses here on monuments to anti-fascist resistance.
Instead of post-war Yugoslavia, however, the context here is the early years of the Weimar
Republic. In 1921, Bauhaus Director
Walter Gropius designed the Denkmal für die Märzgefallenen [Monument for the March Dead] in
Weimar, dedicated to the memory of the victims of the nationalist Kapp putsch in 1920. This is
Lulić’s point of reference in Walter. In 1926, architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed a
monument in Berlin to commemorate Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who had been
murdered by right-wing German nationalists on 15 January 1919. Both monuments use a radically
modern, abstract formal language. As models they are beyond their political content also samples of
constructivist architecture. Can an architectural shape be a vehicle for political content? Mies van
der Rohe was prepared in 1934 to accept commissions from National Socialists, who
had destroyed his Berlin monument for ideological reasons. By subjecting the material, colour and
scale of the original monuments to alterations and by attaching titles to them that are incompatible
with their political significance, Lulić succeeds in de-monumentalising the originals. They are
transformeto Walter, a model resembling a piece of furniture, and to Entertainment Center Mies.
Homage to Otti Berger, 2004
Belvedere, Vienna
Born in 1898 in Zmajevac, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the textile designer
Otti Berger (Otilija Ester Berger) became a Yugoslav subject in 1919. Having attended a secondary
school for girls in Vienna, she studied at the Royal Academy for Arts and Crafts in Zagreb before
becoming a student of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Paul Klee at the Bauhaus Dessau. In 1930 she
completed her training at the Bauhaus weaving workshop and went on to become acting director of
the workshop to replace Gunta Stolzl, who had left, and then deputy head under the new director,
Lilly Reich. In 1932 Berger herself left Dessau and set up a textile studio in Berlin. In 1936 she was
banned from all professional activities because she was Jewish. She emigrated to London with the
intention of moving on to the United States. In 1938 she went back to Yugoslavia to be with her
mother, who was seriously ill. She was unable to obtain an entry visa to the United States. In 2005,
data came to light in Yad Vashem from Russia that prove that Berger was murdered in the
concentration camp at Auschwitz on 27 April 1944. Lulić’s Homage to Otti Berger is dedicated to the
Bauhaus artist. While usually shrinking imposing monuments, he opts for a different strategy here:
he uses one of Berger’s small scale textile designs for a large curtain, a move that sheds an
13
altogether new light on the artist’s work: a piece of fabric, the epitome of lightness, collapsibility and
easy transportability, is raised to the status of a monument.
PERFORMATIVE SCULPTURES
Reactivation (Circulation in Space), 2002/2004
Collection Teiser, Arnsberg
What happens when an artist takes the title of a sculpture at face value? He becomes a performing
artist. What ensues is an encounter between a human body and a static sculpture consisting of rings
of metal. The sculpture
in question is the work of Vojin Bakić, born 1915 in Croatia, and is entitled Cirkulacija u prostoru I
[Circulation in Space I]. The sculpture is located in front of Belgrade’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
The photo series conveys the clear impression that no small amount of exertion is involved in the
physical activities. Lulić performs a wide range of movements. Some of them are reminiscent of
postures associated with 1970s performance art, others of monuments to the war dead. The
performance is shot through with postures that remind one of fitness exercises or of poorly executed
yoga. The idea of getting to grips with the modernist concept of sculpture is realized
here in a way that is at the same time literal, acrobatic and informed by a sense of humour.
Reactivation (Circulation in Space) can be seen as a prototype of Lulić’s performances and his
performative videos.
Kosmaj Monument, 2015 (Blackbox)
Video, 9‘48‘‘ min.
Proposal for a Workers’ Monument, 2014 (Blackbox)
Video, 10‘25‘‘ min.
Jasenovac, 2010 (Blackbox)
Video, 9‘ min.
Space-Girl Dance 2009, 2009
Video, 3‘ min.
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Aksenov Family Foundation collection
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
14
The three videos projected in the blackbox share a similar approach in that they are collaborative
ventures where Lulić cooperates with dancers. In a choreography developed by the artist, the
dancers engage in a dialogue with a monument or a sculpture located in public space. Since 2009,
the artist has created a series of related works such as Jasenovac and Space-Girl Dance 2009. As
Improved Partisan Monuments and other modernist replicas these videos are also a form of spatial
practice aiming to assess the relationship between body and space, between body and sculpture.
While the process of grasping, of de-monumentalisation and the infusion of new meaning is similar
to the one used in the sculptural works mentioned above, the method is different. Here it is not the
shrinkage or the alteration of the object that matters but the way a sculpture or a space is
experienced by the dancers who occupy it (Proposal for a Workers’ Monument, Space-Girl Dance
2009) or the dialogue with and about a monument, which is present only in the dancers’ mind during
the performance (Kosmaj Monument, Jasenovac). Kosmaj Monument refers to a partisan monument
on Kosmaj Mountain near Belgrade. The video was shot in a modernist arts centre in Belgrade built
at about the same time as the monument. Kosmaj Monument was on display at the Spomenici
Revolucije [Monuments of the Revolution] exhibition in 2015/16,
a double solo show at the MAK Center in Los Angeles featuring Marko Lulić and Californian artist
Sam Durant.
At the invitation of the Swiss Sculpture Exhibition at Biel, historically a workingclass city, Lulić
created his Proposal for a Workers’ Monument. In 2014, this quintennial sculpture exhibition was
dedicated to the theme of Le Mouvement [Movement]. This particular edition was focused on
sculptures in the city, the use of public space and the fleeting encounters between human bodies
and inanimate permanent sculptures. Lulić’s point of departure and the venue for the choreography
of Proposal for a Workers’ Monument was the Swiss artist
Franz Eggenschwiler’s sculpture entitled Farbige Baumruine [Coloured Tree
Ruin], dating from 1975. With their movements in front and on top of the object, dancers in colourful
outfits truly took possession of the sculpture. As is the case with many of his projects, what is of key
interest to Lulić in these videos is the social space, the ideological space and the memory space,
over and above the physical space.
15
Objekt für zwei PerformerInnen [Object for Two Performers], 2015/2017
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
The installation offers a standing invitation to observers to step inside and strike a pose. The
moment they do so, they become part of the work. The colours of the objects reflect those in Franz
Eggenschwiler’s Tree Ruin, the sculpture Lulić chose as the venue for the performance of Proposal
for a Workers’ Monument. It is conceivable, however, that individual parts of the installations were
conceived by Lulić as fragments of another disassembled modernist sculpture. Visitors find
themselves face to face with these assorted fragments and are invited to pick their way through
them. (Remade) modernity, waiting to be used as a stage.
Ohne Titel (Körperstudie 1–5) [Untitled (Body Study 1–5)], 2004–2010
Videos, 0‘57‘‘, 1‘34‘‘, 1‘12‘‘, 0‘40‘‘, 0‘58‘‘ min.
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
These five videos could be called tableaux vivants, products of a technique of recreating
monuments or paintings with the help of live actors that has been around since the 18th century.
What work of art could possibly have served as a source of inspiration for this group of three? Do we
see Hypnos and Thanatos carrying the dead Sarpedon or is the dead body nobody less than Christ
after the Deposition from the Cross? Iconographic traditions such as these – grounded in classical
antiquity or in Christianity – are also invoked by some of the partisan monuments cast in the formal
language of Socialist Realism. It was a monument located in Istria that
gave rise to the slapstick-like scenes enacted jointly by the artist, fellow artists and members of the
exhibition installation team. The duration of each video depended on the length of time during which
it proved possible to carrya “wounded partisan“.
ARCHITECTURE
Corner (Lulic House No.1), 2006
Lulic House No.1 (Weekend Utopia) – Model silver, 2005
MAK − Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art, Vienna
Taking the form of a genuine house, Lulic House No.1 (Weekend Utopia) was a sculptural project in
the wider sense of the word. It was prefabricated according to the artist’s specifications by
Kunsthaus Bregenz and the firm Oa.sys. As in many of Lulić’s works, references to modernity play
16
an important part – the house is an edited remake of Frey House No.1 in Palm Springs. Lulić
addressed the house in several exhibitions, showing the model, interior design and abstract objects
related to the architecture of the building such as Corner (Lulic House No.1). The entire project
served the artist to articulate the question of where architecture begins and art ends – and vice
versa.
ART IN PUBLIC SPACE / POP CULTURE / IDENTITY
Modell für ein Denkmal für Migration in Perušić
[Model for a Monument to Migration in Perušić], 2004
Private collection, Vienna
The caption of Model of a Monument to Migration in Perušić, “LULIĆ survived the TITANIC”, refers
to a historic event and to someone called Lulić. However, the person in question is not Marko but
Nikola Lulić, who survived the shipwreck of the Titanic as a third-class passenger. The work can be
read as the blueprint of a sculpture in the public space of a small Croatian town, Perušić, for which
there never was such a thing as a commission, or as a work of art that speaks about migration in
general terms.
Architekturmodell postrevolutionärer Spielplatz
[Architectural Model of a Postrevolutionary Playground], 2006–2007
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
The Architectural Model of a Post-revolutionary Playground reminds one of the many monuments
that have been knocked down since 1989 and of all those severed bronze heads of dictators. By
substituting his own head for that of a dictator, Lulić shows that there is no such thing as a safe
distance when it comes to observing political history; one’s own identity is always at stake in that
context. While Lulić’s work is never lacking in historical references, the artist is concerned at the
same time with the present and the future. History is only of interest to him to the extent it can
provide a foil for the present.
17
Ohne Titel (Lichtung) [Untitled (Clearance], 2010
City of Schuttorf
Clearance was a project of art in public space and came into existence through a dialogue with local
residents. Attention was paid to local social and urban conditions being taken into consideration.
The Rademacher sphere lamps, that had served for several decades as street lighting in Schuttorf,
a small town in the south-west of Lower Saxony, were due to be replaced. The reason officially cited
for this move was the EU’s Lamp Ordinance but, as Lulić realised, there was more to it than that.
The lamps’ formal language, harking back as it did to the 1970s, was a thorn in the eye of many
residents and officials of the town council. Having been invited to take part in the sculpture exhibition
raumsichten, the artist developed Clearance for the exhibition, a thought-provoking project. He
proposed to the town council to “buy back” 34 of the lamps that were about to be discarded. By way
of exchange, he would find a new use for them by integrating them into an installation in the form of
a “stand” of lamps.
Der Stoff, aus dem Träume sind [The Stuff that Dreams Are Made of], 2010
Public Art Styria
In Graz Lulić worked together with residents of Terrassensiedlung, a tiered housing estate that had
been realised as a progressive building in the 1970s. In a series of sessions in the course of half a
year, the artist developed this work with an evolving group of around thirty people. The greatest
difficulty lay in finding common ground shared by two groups of residents. There were the concrete
lovers – in some cases architects who had taken a hand in designing the housing estate and had
then moved in – and the concrete haters, who sought to ignore the building material as much as
possible and focused on the greenery on the terraces and the patios. In a complex process it proved
possible to find a significant amount of common ground: The Stuff that Dreams Are Made of.
Psychogeography, 2013
Museum Vienna
For Psychogeography, Lulić combined site-specific elements with biography and enhances both by
adding a third element, moving around in the city. For this, he borrowed the title from the founding
member of the Situationist
International, Guy Debord. In Psychogeography Lulić literally follows in the footsteps of his own life.
He pays a visit to all the houses located in various districts of Vienna where he had lived in the past
and makes rubbings of their walls on paper in what was enacted as a performance. The somewhat
18
old-fashioned frottage technique was chosen deliberately, since it enables the artist to invoke certain
epochs of 20th century art history such as Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, movements that
put a great deal of emphasis on the unconscious and favoured automatistic drawing and painting.
Lulić’s reference to this tradition, however, is distanced and ironical as he is very far from attributing
the “sacred” role to mental processes in art endorsed by artists of the eras mentioned above.
Abbazia, 1999
Video, 13‘53‘‘ min.
Sunset und Umgebung [Sunset and Surroundings], 1997/1999
Video, 6‘ min.
Courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Private collection, Los Angeles
Exploration and comprehension of space made possible by movement are mcentral to these two
videos. While the conceptual style of working is the same nas in the videos shown in the blackbox in
the Great Hall, there is one significant difference. Here, grasping space in the literal sense of the
word does not require the agency of the body as it does in dance, relying instead on the camera and
its movements. As in most of Lulić’s other work, what is paramount in these two videos is both the
creation of new interpretations – here notably of locations – and the explication of their (pop) cultural
significance. In Abbazia, Lulić takes a ride on Vienna’s U6 underground to Urban-Loritz-Platz. He
documents a building on the Gurtel that used to house the Abbazia cinema in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Abbazia was an arthouse cinema that specialised exclusively in martial arts films. As a child,
the artist sometimes spent entire Saturdays at the Abbazia. In the 1970s, martial arts movies offered
various minorities a cross-cultural opportunity for identification. Again, class and pop culture are
invoked, two concepts that play a key role in Lulić’s work. In Los Angeles, Lulić shot Sunset and
Surroundings, a video that references Ed Ruscha’s art book Every Building on the Sunset Strip.
Unlike Ruscha, who documented the buildings along Sunset Boulevard with his photo camera, Lulić
filmed the locale with a video camera from the car. The buildings seem to move past the observer.
As U-turns are not possible on Sunset Boulevard, it was necessary at some stage to leave the
Boulevard in order to get to the other side and film the street in the opposite direction. Lulić’s
intervention in this way earns the Sunset Boulevard title the matter-of-fact and trivial addition and
Surroundings.
19
Press Images
Press Images available for download at www.lentos.at.
Free use of press images only in conjunction with the relevant exhibition.
Marko Lulic, Entertainment Center Mies (orange), 2003 Privatsammlung, Berlin Courtesy: Gabriele Senn Galerie, Wien und der Künstler Foto: Stephan Lugbauer
Marko Lulic, Museum of Revolution, 2010 installation view 21er Haus Belvedere collection Belvedere, Vienna photo: Marko Lulić
Marko Lulic, Hard and soft No.1, 2002 exhibition view Through Soft Concrete, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, 2002 collection of the MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna photo: Susanne Stadler
Marko Lulic, Hard and soft No.2, 2002 exhibition view Through Soft Concrete, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, 2002 collection of the MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna photo: Susanne Stadler
20
Marko Lulic, Proposal for a Workers’ Monument, 2014 commissioned by Le Mouvement, Swiss Sculpture Exhibition, Biel / Bienne, 2014 courtesy of Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Marko Lulic, Object for two Performers, 2015 courtesy of Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist photo: Iris Ranzinger
Marko Lulic, Reactivation (Circulation in Space), 2002/04 courtesy of Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist collection Teiser, Arnsberg
Marko Lulic, Proposal for a Workers’ Monument, 2014 commissioned by Le Mouvement, Swiss Sculpture Exhibition, Biel / Bienne, 2014 courtesy of Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
21
Marko Lulic , Untitled (Clearance), 2010 public arts project commissioned for raumsichten permanent installation City of Schüttorf photo: Stephan Konjer
Marko Lulic, Proposal for a Workers’ Monument, 2014 commissioned by Le Mouvement, Swiss Sculpture Exhibition, Biel / Bienne, 2014 courtesy of Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Marko Lulic, Improved Partisan Monument (Kosmaj, polychrom), 2005/2010 courtesy of Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist photo: Marko Lulić
Marko Lulic , Untitled (Clearance), 2010 public arts project commissioned for raumsichten permanent installation City of Schüttorf photo: Helmut Claus
22
Marko Lulic, Death of The Monument, 2009
installation view Erich Hauser Foundation,
Rottweil
courtesy Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the
artist photo: Marko Lulić
Marko Lulic, Homage Otti Berger, 2004 collection Teiser, Arnsdorf photo: Alistair Overbruck
Exhibtion view Marko Lulić. Futurology, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, 2017 photo: maschekS.
Exhibtion view Marko Lulić. Futurology, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, 2017 photo: maschekS.
Exhibtion view Marko Lulić. Futurology, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, 2017 photo: maschekS.
Exhibtion view Marko Lulić. Futurology, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, 2017 photo: maschekS.
23
Exhibtion view Marko Lulić. Futurology, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, 2017 photo: maschekS.
Exhibtion view Marko Lulić. Futurology, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, 2017 photo: maschekS.
Exhibtion view Marko Lulić. Futurology, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, 2017 photo: maschekS.
Exhibtion view Marko Lulić. Futurology, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, 2017 photo: maschekS.