Zlatko Kopljar, K20 Empty by MMSU Rijeka

K20 EMPTY Zlatko Kopljar

Empty

Ivana Mance

Unatoč pomalo neočekivanoj pojavnosti, radovi iz novog ciklusa Zlatka Kopljara pod nazivom Empty tematski se nadovezuju na njegovu, već višekratno posvjedočenu temeljnu umjetničku preokupaciju. Bez obzira, naime, na neposredni siže svakog pojedinog rada ili projekta, bilo da se radi o performansu, video-filmu ili nekom trećem medijskom obliku, Kopljareva briga odnosno upitanost nad sudbinom umjetnosti i ulogom umjetnika u suvremenom društvu uvijek odnosi prevagu nad svakom drugom tematskom ili problemskom razinom na temelju koje bi bilo moguće povesti diskusiju o pojedinom djelu ili ga pak korektno identificirati u kontekstu suvremene umjetničke produkcije. Očekivani, pa i opravdani prigovor ovoj tvrdnji mogao bi, naravno, biti da svako umjetničko djelo podrazumijeva tu metajezičku, metadiskurzivnu dimenziju u kojoj esencijalno propituje postojeće paradigme razumijevanja umjetnosti, no u Kopljarevom radu ta je, u osnovi filozofijska misao ipak intencionalno stavljena na središnje mjesto. Štoviše, često predočena u kolosalnom mjerilu ili kroz patetičnu gestu, nerijetko i izravnim korištenjem vlastita tijela u njegovoj snazi ili nemoći, ta teška misao o umjetnosti samoj i njezinome tubitku u pravilu ostavlja malo mjesta za brbljanje o svemu ostalome. Tome problemskom registru pripada i također relativno česta Kopljareva potreba za artikuliranjem odnosa prema Instituciji – umjetničkoj instituciji, ali i svim drugim institucijama koje posjeduju i reproduciraju društvenu moć. Uz danas već antologijske radove iz ciklusa Compassion, u kojima je umjetnik ritualno klečao ispred njujorške burze, Bijele kuće, kineskog parlamenta i drugih notornih mjesta koja simboliziraju globalni poredak, tijekom svoga stvaralaštva – prisjetimo se – Kopljar je u nekoliko

navrata, na uobičajeno jasan, dramatičan način, demonstrirao antagonistički odnos umjetnika prema samoj umjetničkoj instituciji: primjerice, u performansu u kojem je zidove umjetničke galerije razbijao maljem, ili drugom prilikom, kada je navaljivanjem betonskoga bloka zapriječio ulaz u muzej uoči otvorenja velike, reprezentativne izložbe. I dok su se takve umjetničke geste bez imalo zadrške još mogle kvalificirati kao humanistički bunt prema sistemu od kojeg se subjekt teži kritički distancirati, usmjeravajući razumljivu agresiju prema strukturama koje smatra nadležnima za neposredno stanje otuđenja, u radovima iz aktualnog ciklusa Empty o tome buntu više ne može biti govora. Betonski blok, kao njegov trag ili daleki odjek, opet je doduše “navaljen” na ulaze prestižnih institucija, ali sada se sasvim stopio, su-uobličio s njihovom arhitekturom; ni po čemu se ne odvaja od institucijskog kompleksa, u potpunosti je u njega asimiliran. Uzalud je ovdje tražiti dakle ikakav trag humane prisutnosti; ovo nisu klasična, modernom habitusu svojstvena mjesta alijenacije, jer ta relacija podrazumijeva instancu subjekta koji se još aktivno odnosi spram zatečene stvarnosti. Ovdje adresirana mjesta odnosno institucije – simboli moći u svijetu umjetnosti – prikazana su kao svojevrsni duhovi sebe samih, monumentalizirani odljevi vlastitih slika i prilika. Potpuno lišene svakog sadržaja – svih šarenih laži pomoću kojih su jednom sudjelovale u proizvodnji i održavanju sveopćeg simulakruma društvene stvarnosti kao svijeta u kojemu već odavno jesmo i kojem automatski pridonosimo, često čak onda i kada težimo misliti kritički – ove arhitektonske strukture izražavaju doslovnu prazninu smisla, prazninu koja se nalazi iza privida stvarnosti, ali mu nije transcedentalna; ne nadilazi ga u metafizičkome smislu, kao nadređena

i jedina istinska stvarnost, već naprosto zjapi kao rupa, ništavilo koje ostaje kada se stiša histerična razmjena. Ono što Kopljar dakle uprizoruje jest realna deficitarnost, dapače izlišnost političkih i društvenih institucija (uključujući i umjetničke) u sustavu u kojem imperativ maksimacije profita učinkovito eliminira svaku težnju za lijepim, dobrim ili istinitim – riječju, upravo ono što bi institucije kao takve trebale regulirati, poticati i čuvati. Opstajući kao puka mjesta proizvodnje ili akumulacije razmjenske vrijednosti, umjetničke institucije odavno nisu mjesta umjetničke ideacije, već banalizacije umjetnosti sa svrhom izvlaštenja njezine kapitalne vrijednosti. Njihova uloga iz perspektive tobože preživljene umjetničke samosvrhovitosti doista je ništavna, i upravo za tu metafizičku ništavnost Kopljar traži adekvatan izraz. Predloženo rješenje svojevrsne su “makete” slavnih, arhitektonski vrlo atraktivnih muzeja – u postojećem stanju ili planiranim nadogradnjama. To su tehnički generirani, u betonu izliveni umjetnički “objekti” koji estetski ne pretendiraju na status skulpture, ali ipak svojom korpuskularnošću fingiraju auru klasičnog umjetničkog djela. Ipak, više nego li što djeluju svojim estetskim dojmom, ti objekti operiraju prvenstveno konceptualno – posreduju u osnovi apsurdnu ideju da se umjetnička institucija uopće predstavlja u vidu umanjenog skulpturalnog modela njezine arhitekture. Svedena na puku arhitektonsku pojavnost, i to na način koji reducira raskoš realnih arhitektonskih oblika na njihov trodimenzionalni obris u betonu – materijalu čije tehničke mogućnosti i inače podržavaju banalnu hiperprodukciju arhitektonskih volumena i prostornih kapaciteta bez ikakve kulturne vrijednosti i socijalnog smisla – umjetnička institucija pokazuje se kao ono što de facto već jest – sjena vlastitog

institucionalnog bitka, tijelo spektakularnih oblika koje utjelovljuje Ništa, koje prostor paradoksalno ispunjava prazninom. I dok je tip umjetničkog ponašanja koji se prepoznavao pod terminom “institucionalne kritike” – kao što smo već i spomenuli – podrazumijevao angažirani društveni subjekt koji provocira i propituje ovlasti institucija, Kopljareva odluka da se vrati pukom mimesisu – pasivnom oponašanju zbilje, na način koji ne odaje osobitih ambicija za njezinom umjetničkom transformacijom, sugerira njegovo reteriranje. Umjetnički subjekt ne samo da više nije angažiran, već otvoreno priznaje nemoć; pristajući da se njegov betonski blok utopi u volumenu institucije, postaje svjedokom asimiliranja vlastite pobune. Dakako, mogli bismo reći da patuljasto oponašanje arhitektonske grandomanije nije bez ironije. I nije; samo što se ona odnosi i na vlastite umjetničke ingerencije koje su s institucijom u konstitutivnoj vezi. U svakom slučaju, nestanak umjetničkog subjekta na antagonističkoj poziciji spram institucija moći sada je sasvim izvjestan. Dogodio se, budimo iskreni, već i mnogo prije, no tek sada nastupa vrijeme oplakivanja.

EMPTY IN-BETWEEN: Umjetnost pred zatvaranjem?

Žarko Paić

I Razmještanja Najveći tabu, dogma i totem onoga što nazivamo suvremenom umjetnošću jest njezina paradoksalna zadaća da se obezvremeni tako što će se u potpunosti stopiti s prostorom vlastita nestanka. Iako je proglasila svoje poslanstvo duhom apsolutnoga rastemeljenja ideje temelja u oponašanju Boga i prirode (mimezis), razmještanja euklidovskoga prostora i otvaranja mnoštva svjetova razlike, što pretpostavlja korak s onu stranu granica stvaranja i stvorenoga, nešto je ipak preostalo od ove čudovišne zabrane. Ikonoklazam slike i prelazak iz kraljevstva govora u tjelesnost događaja omogućili su nastanak nečega što je od samoga početka moderne opsesije s tehnologijom vizualizacije bilo naslućeno u djelima velikih mislilaca-umjetnika 20. stoljeća: Duchampa i Artauda. Radi se o iskustvu kraja metafizike i njezina prelaska u patafiziku (bez) kretanja gore i dolje. Ono što je naslućeno u nemogućnosti daljnjega prikazivanja–predstavljanja (representatio) čistoga djela umjetnosti odgovara idejama filozofijskoga i znanstvenoga obrata spram nečega što se u analogiji s jezičnim obratom u sliku može nazvati prostornim obratom (spatial turn).1 Kada se u ideji suvremene umjetnosti više ne može pronaći Bog, priroda, čovjek, a niti svijet u metafizičkome značenju, suočeni smo s njihovim praznim označiteljima. Nadomjestak nije puka zamjena za nešto izvorno, pa bi onda, valjda, programiranje digitalnih medija bila zamjena za medij slikarstva od Giorgia de Chirica do Francisa Bacona. 1

Vidi o tome: Žarko Paić, Posthumano stanje: Kraj čovjeka i mogućnosti druge povijesti, Litteris, Zagreb, 2011.

Naprotiv, logika hybrisa jest semiotika nadomjeska u djelovanju upravo onoga što se ne vidi okom niti se više može iskazati pravilima jezika. Suvremena je umjetnost u svojoj beskonačnoj reprodukciji (bez) izvornika život neodređenoga događaja. Sve to odgovara stalnoj prisutnosti insceniranja onoga što je progoni poput sablasti. A to uistinu podsjeća na problem “praznoga prostora” u doba gotike (horror vacui). No, nije to više strah od nečega što ima značajke tjeskobe egzistencije, tog herojskoga doba visokoga modernizma s kojim se u ekspresionizmu Muncha i u egzistencijalizmu Sartrea i Camusa otvorilo pitanje o smislu subjekta i umjetnosti kao čiste kontingencije. Nešto je posve drugo posrijedi. Suvremena se umjetnost u svojoj redukciji na prostor uronjenosti (immersion) u čisti događaj virtualne aktualizacije suočava s pitanjem o svojoj “otvorenoj zatvorenosti”. Alain Badiou je u djelu Bitak i događaj (L’etre et l’événement) to nazvao prazninom između (in-between) bitka kao mnoštva i događaja kao vremenske strukture novoga s kojim otpočinje prekid s dosadašnjim tijekom povijesti.2 Prazno nije, dakle, mjesto između nečega što jest “ovo” i “ono”. Ono prazno “nije”. I baš stoga što “nije”, upravo to što “jest” prazno u svojoj “praznini” može postati singularnim događajem novoga prostora i vremena ili ostati zauvijek praznim. Suvremena umjetnost šokantno i provokativno šuti o onome što je još ispunjava stvaralačko-razaralačkim patosom otkrivenja od trenutka njezine pomirbe s prostorom izlaganja događaja. Muzeji suvremene umjetnosti žive od te dogme i tabua. Oni su totemi vlastite obezboženosti u suočenju s onim što čini njihovu bit – da, naime, čuvaju iskustvo bezdana i arhiviraju svijest o vlastitome mjestu-vremenu onoga praznoga između (Empty in-between). 2 Alain Badiou, L’etre et l’événement, Seuil, Pariz, 1988.

Prostor beskonačnoga trajanja suvremene umjetnosti u vremenu aktualizacije predstavlja derealizirana zona svetoga. Svi su muzeji suvremene umjetnosti stoga ili bezlične hipermoderne katedrale, ili, pak, spektakularni hangari na rubu grada, apokaliptička svratišta urbanih nomada, arhitektura sublimne praznine koja već uvijek računa na tri ključne riječi nadomjeska klasične estetike ljepote, uzvišenosti i fantazije: šok, provokaciju i eksperiment. Bez njihove djelotvornosti u javnome prostoru izvedbe društva i politike globalnoga kapitalizma suvremena umjetnost i arhitektura gube posljednje razloge postojanja. Nije to, dakako, ništa novo. Problem u logici nadomjeska za ono što je nepovratno iščezlo povijesnim napretkom i razvitkom tehno-znanosti samo je u tome što sve danas postaje umjetnošću bez objekta jer više nema onog subjekta koji je proizvodio novo. Umjesto toga imamo tehnosferu. Ona kibernetički stvara nov život s pomoću transgenskih mutacija kao u projektima Eduarda Kaca.3 Bez objekta i bez autentične vremenosti suvremenoj umjetnosti preostaje insceniranje “događaja” kao medijske tvorbe slike. Ovdje, dakako, razlika između stvarnoga i fiktivnoga više nije presudnom. Ono što uistinu jest bitno svodi se na šok, provokaciju i eksperiment života samoga u njegovoj preostaloj slobodi preobrazbe u umjetnički događaj. Giorgio Agamben je ovo doba profanacije otuda shvatio kao logiku djelovanju otvorenosti bez onoga što je Heidegger još vidio u slikarstvu Cézannea i Kleea – od predslikovnoga do praslikovnoga, polazeći od uronjenosti u tajnu samoga čina stvaranja. 3

Vidi o tome: Ingeborg Reichle, Art in the Age of Technoscience: Genetic

Engineering, Robotics, and Artificial LIfe in Contemporary Art,

Wien-New York, 2009. i Claudia Gianetti, Digitale Äesthetik: Einführung,

http://www.medienkunstnetz/de/themen/aesthetik_des_digitalen

Otvorenost je danas postala naprosto “praznom”.4 S njom se više ništa ne događa u smislu nadolazećega događaja novoga koje duboko potresa ljudsko iskustvo življenja. “Prazna” otvorenost aktualnoga vremena ne donosi ništa drugo osim spektakularnosti “nove” izvedbe. Svaka je izvedba (performans) utoliko “praznija” ukoliko je šokantnija i provokativnija. Eksperiment s novim u svojem mahnitome ponavljanju, koje filozof tehnologije i informacije Gilbert Simondon naziva metastabilnošću5, izaziva učinak zamora opažaja. I promatrači od aktivne i participativne publike, koja mora biti sudionikom događaja, ne zato što to želi, nego zato što bez nje čista ravnodušnost nadomješta udivljenje i događaj se događa bez većih poteškoća u nedogled, postaju sami zatvorenim strukturama “praznoga pogleda”. No, ovaj put to nije pogled Drugoga, nego pogled umornoga boga Dioniza i njegova homeostatskoga oka kojim gleda samoga sebe. Suvremena umjetnost, dakle, u doba prostornoga obrata (spatial turn) ima tri stadija vlastita razmještanja: (1) mimetičko – priroda se razmješta tako što se neutralizira njezina praiskonska stvaralačka moć upregnućem u laboratorijski slučaj nastanka estetskoga objekta kao “nove prirode” koja seže od umjetnih ljudskih parkova do genetske manipulacije; (2) reprezentacijsko – subjekt se konstituira pogledom Drugoga i jezikom nesvjesnoga kao “stroj želja” u rasponu od krika i bijesa 4

Giorgio Agamben, The Man Without Content, Stanford University Press, Stanford-California, 1999.

Gilbert Simondon, L’individuation psychique et collective, Aubier, Pariz, 1989/2007.

berlinskoga dadaizma do shizofrenije identiteta u doba digitalne slike iz koje se isušila stvarnost kao zrak iz Duchampovih sušila za boce; (3) informacijsko – stanje i događaj se proizvode iz potrebe sustava da u doba vladavine “društava kontrole” nadzire svoje aktivne korisnike tako što im daje slobodu eksperimentiranja u granicama Oca/Zakona korporativne mreže medijskih događaja. Razmještanja prostora izvedbe umjetničkoga djela kao događaja iz položaja umjetnika i događaja kao djela iz položaja “Velikog Trećega” u liku muzejske institucije s pravom suverene odluke o izlaganju-u-vremenu dovodi to toga da se povijest umjetnosti kao povijest ideje umjetnosti od vladavine jezika do moći slike odvija u krugu oponašanja “izvornika”, predstavljanja “dvojnika” i konstrukcije “nematerijalnoga” u jednom te istome svijetu. Takav svijet smješta se u vlastitome praznome-između (Empty In-between). Ovdje se ne radi o prostoru izlaganja nečeg kao nečeg u smislu objekta. Ako se izloži ideja kao koncept, onda je ideja muzeja suvremene umjetnosti zastarjelom. Ideje se ne izlažu. Ali novac u formi simboličke i stvarne razmjene perverzije vrijednosti da, kao i mjesto njegove reprezentacije moći poput korporativnih sjedišta kao što su banke i riznice zlatnih rezervi imperijalno umreženih država u globalnome poretku. Kada ideja postane umjetničkim “objektom” onda je problem “subjekta” u tome što on više ne vidi iza ideje ništa osim drugoga “objekta”. U tom deliriju beskonačnoga uvećavanja vrijednosti raste pustinja inter-objektivnosti našega doba. Ne, nije to više nikakav strah od praznine kao u gotici nadomješten uzvišenošću Raspetoga Boga u arhitekturi katedrale kao sveze neba i zemlje, besmrtnika

i smrtnika. Ne, nije to više ni tjeskoba modernoga subjekta koji bježi u svjetove vlastite fikcije da ne bi sudjelovao u orgijama masovna idolopoklonstva žrtvovanju Drugoga u ime nacije/rase/ kulture i bezuvjetne moći tehnike nad životom kao takvim. Sada je riječ o praznome bez svojega označitelja i označenoga, o praznome između, gdje ovo “između” ne povezuje bitak i događaj. Izostanak odnosa ili sveze između dvojega samo pokazuje da se ova druga praznina, za razliku od praznoga središta moći Drugoga – Boga, čovjeka, stroja, mreže, univerzalnoga kôda života – ne nalazi više nigdje drugdje doli u samoj biti svijeta. S njome suvremena umjetnost nastoji sklopiti odnos međusobne “stvaralačke ravnodušnosti”. To što jest u ovome stanju “između” uistinu prazno nije nipošto ništa isprazno i pusto samo po sebi. Ovo nije prazno mjesto u-prostoru, već je sam prostor i vrijeme koje iz njega proizlazi a da ga ne uvjetuje totalno prazno i stoga praznije od praznoga. Kada se otvorenost suvremene umjetnosti svodi na konstrukciju prostora kao mreže događaja, tada je jasno da je svako razmještanje institucija u kojima se to zbiva privremena metastabilnost zatvorenoga sustava.6 Umjetnost je zatvorena u sebi samoj naprosto stoga što se još samo svodi na kritiku političke reprezentacije moći i na kritiku estetske proizvodnje života kao tehničkoga objekta.7 Između nema više ništa. Osim onoga što jest prazno.

Gilles Deleuze, Différence et répetition, P.U.F., Pariz, 2000.

7 Jacques Rancière, Le Partage du sensible: Estétique et politique, Le Fabrique-Édition, Pariz, 2000.

II Prazno Zlatko Kopljar u svojem novome radu K20 bavi se pitanjem razmještanja prostora same izvedbe umjetnosti kao izlaganjau-prostoru. Baviti se prostornim obratom (spatial turn) znači poći od pretpostavke da klasična definicija Arhura C. Dantoa o umjetnosti kao “ozakonjenoj” institucionaliziranoj djelatnosti u prostoru-između (in-between) sustava i svijeta života pretpostavlja mrežu događaja. A nju je nemoguće rasplesti ili razoriti izvana.8 Umjetnost funkcionira kao i svaki drugi sustav u složenome svijetu tehnosfere: od prava, politike, ekonomije, znanosti, religije. I baš stoga što umjetnost “funkcionira” prema zadanim pravilima njezina se simbolička funkcija “ozakonjenja” prostora zbivanja više ne može smatrati održivom ukoliko ne postoji uzajamna igra središta i ruba, institucionalizirane moći i alternativne protumoći. Paradoks je da je danas sve više umjetnosti ne zato što postoji potreba za “duhovnim sadržajima”, jer bi to bilo suprotno Hegelovoj postavci o “kraju umjetnosti” nakon nestanka duhovne potrebe za njom. Umjesto toga radi se o želji kao pokretačkome mehanizmu kulture informacijskoga kapitalizma za novim događajima. Bez obzira na svoj estetski doseg oni stvaraju privid novoga iza fasade insceniranja spektakla. Posve je svejedno o čemu se tu radi. Šok, provokacija i eksperiment sežu od banalnosti svakodnevice do uzvišenih tragova transgresije smrti od kanibalizma do uzgoja nadčovjeka iz epruvete. U pravu je Jean-Luc Nancy kad u svojoj knjizi Muze kaže: 8 Arthur C. Danto, After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1998.

“U svijetu bez slike u tom se smislu pojavljuje prava bujica, vrtlog slika u kojima se više ne snalazimo, u kojima se umjetnost više ne snalazi. To je proliferacija viđenja/viđenog (vues), mnogostruki odbljesci samoga vidljivog ili osjetilnog, i koji ni na što ne upućuju. Viđenja koja ništa ne pokazuju, ili koja ništa ne vide: viđenja bez vizije. (Sjetimo se nestanka romantičnog lika umjetnika vizionara.)”9 Kada, dakle, razlog bavljenja razmještanjem prostora u suvremenoj umjetnosti više nije korak u razlomljenje čestica, dovođenje prostora do fraktalne geometrije nastanka mikropolitike događaja, tada se može uočiti nešto krajnje obično, čak trivijalno, ali upravo zbog toga i presudno za ono što Zlatko Kopljar poduzima u radu naslovljenom Prazno (Empty). Ponajprije, naša je spoznaja u artikulaciji mišljenja danas nesumnjivo postala do te mjere posredovana onim “viđenjem bez vizije” da više ne zamjećujemo kako svaka intervencija u prostor ne dolazi iz sfere tzv. društvene participacije umjetnika.10 Posve suprotno, intervencije su sustavna re-konstrukcija poretka kapitalističke amodernizacije. U tom sklopu arhitektura više ne gradi “novo”, nego razmješta strukture i čestice unutar mreže novoga konteksta i situacije. Nema više vizije. Ali ima čudovišnih zdanja bolje ili lošije konstrukcije. Intervencija u prostoru suvremene umjetnosti, da paradoks bude potpun, dolazi otuda što se “svetost” institucije izlaganja i politike reprezentacije događaja kao zaštićenoga djela privremeno suspendira i neutralizira. Otvorenost se nužno 9 Jean-Luc Nancy, Muze, MeandarMedia, Zagreb, 2014., str. 168. S francuskoga prevela Vanda Mikšić 10

Vidi o tome: Juliane Rebentisch, Theorien der Gegenwartkunst: zur Einführung, Junius, Berlin, 2013., str. 58-91.

zatvara. Kada se slika u suvremenoj umjetnosti djela kao tijela i tijela kao događaja više ne odnosi ni na što izvan ovoga samoreferencijalnoga kruga značenja, tada postaje jasno da imamo posla s posve drukčijim shvaćanjem i pristupom onome što se tako sablasno uvuklo u naš svijet, dapače naselilo se u njega, a da to nismo ni zamijetili jer više nemamo izvornoga dara za viđenje (viziju) praznine. Tehnika gledanja u prazno nije specifičnost istočnjačkih mudrosti poput zen-buddhizma. To je značajka kontemplacije. A s njom otpočinje moderna subjektivnost. No, kada se to “prazno” u svojoj naseljenosti nalazi u samoj jezgri ili srži prostora kao vremena totalne mobilizacije umjetnosti=kapitala, da se poslužimo formulom Josepha Beuysa, tada više nema razlike između umjetnosti i arhitekture, jer “prazno” ne dolazi izvana. Ono nije negdje izvan ovoga kruga razumijevanja. Problem je u tome što “prazno” postaje nadomjestak “biti” same umjetnosti u njezinome razmještanju zona od svetoga do profanoga i dalje. Još jednom: u doba informacijske razmještenosti sama se slika svijeta nalazi u-praznome prostoru. To je prostor-između (In-between), a da to između ne povezuje više dvoje razdvojenih i iz njih dobiva značenje. Naprotiv, “prazno” mjesto postaje novim ekscentričnim središtem i konstituira sve drugo kao Drugo. Muzeji suvremene umjetnosti nužno počivaju na tom iskustvu ontologijsko-strukturne praznine u svojoj načelno otvorenoj zatvorenosti svjetova. A što kad ih više nema ili su privremeno zatvoreni zbog “rekonstrukcije”? Nastaje li tada šok-provokacija-eksperiment bez svijeta zatvorene izloženosti djela kao događaja i događaja kao djela? Što uopće još može biti umjetnost kada muzeji poput MoMe u New Yorku ili Tate Modern u Londonu najave zatvaranje zbog promjene vlastite

lokacije u prostoru Realnoga i izgradnje/nadogradnje onoga “novoga”, kako nas o tome izvještavaju mediji? Arhitekt Jean Nouvel, nesumnjivo jedna od iznimno bitnih figura suvremene arhitekture, sugovornik u dijalogu s filozofom simulacije i simulakruma Jeanom Baudrillardom,11 izazvao je već kontroverze zbog ideje podizanja odveć visokoga tornja unutar kojeg će se smjestiti galerije buduće MoMe. Projekt pod nazivom “53W53” najvećeg nebodera u New Yorku postaje na taj način više od arhitektonskoga zahvata u prostor koji ne pripada zemlji, već ispresijecanome nebu prepunom betona, stakla i praznine (Skyscraper). Zlatko Kopljar otišao je još korak dalje u promišljanju odnosa umjetnosti i njezina prostora izlaganja u instituciji muzeja suvremene umjetnosti. Postavio je u odnose, što znači u pitanje, razmještenost prostora i konstrukciju umjetnosti kao sinteze životno-estetskih iskustava u složenome sklopu postindustrijskih društava današnjice. Što se događa kada razmjestimo najznačajnije institucije “umjetnosti” u zatvoreni prostor suspenzije djelovanja same umjetnosti kao sublimnoga Oca/Zakona iz kojeg ona dobiva svoja privremena značenja? Ništa nije zauvijek zajamčeno. Vidjeli smo kako Jean-Luc Nancy pokazuje da u doba “proliferacije viđenja/viđenoga” ono što čini “bit” suvremene umjetnosti nije tek umjetnička slika. Riječ je o ikonoklazmu samoga života.12 Iz njega nastaje vizualizacija događaja. Medijska slika svijeta zahtijeva, pak, nužno ideologijsku konstrukciju značenja. No, kada se viđenje viđenoga u svemu tome izjednači s gledanjem u “prazno”, 11 Jean Baudrillard i Jean Nouvel, The Singular Objects of Architecture, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London, 2005. 12

Žarko Paić, Slika bez svijeta: Ikonoklazam suvremene umjetnosti, Litteris, Zagreb, 2006.

tada od muzeja suvremene umjetnosti (u pluralu), ne preostaje ništa drugo negoli informacijska razmještenost. Ona ima svoje izvore u slici Realnoga kao “praznoga”. Zlatko Kopljar doveo je u odnos dvije institucije suvremene umjetnosti kao zone profanacije novoga svetoga (MoMa i Tate Modern) tako što ih je zatvorio u ograđeni prostor. Vizija novoga se ne sagledava više iz mogućnosti stvaranja “novoga” prostora u-zemlji i na-nebu. Sve što uopće jest novo može biti samo suvremeno tako što sintetizira iskustvo povijesne prošlosti, doživljaj sadašnjosti i kontingenciju nepredvidljive budućnosti. Eksperimentalnost se pritom svodi na igru s idejama, a ne na konstruiranje “Realnoga”. U tome je razlika između umjetnosti i arhitekture čak i kada potonja sebe vidi igrom oblika i promjene temelja materijalnoga svijeta u kojem obitavamo. Sintetsko doba života vidi se i u nazivima znanosti i definicijama medijske umjetnosti: od sintetske biologije, antropologije do novih medija. Ako ono “prazno” Realno označava nemogućnost daljnjega “napretka” i “razvitka” ideje suvremene umjetnosti, tada je sazrelo vrijeme da se postavi u pitanje koje su njezine granice i što ta i takva ideja još može značiti u budućnosti. Prostorni obrat (spatial turn) postao je eksperimentalnom igrom metamorfnih struktura u biološkome, društvenome i političkome značenju.13 Ono što je Michel Foucault odredio pojmom heterotopije ovdje se sada pojavljuje kao sintetska distopija političko-estetskoga eksperimenta s institucijama i njihovim djelovanjem u kulturno mapiranome prostoru globalnoga poretka.14 13

Barney Warf i Santa Arias (ur.), The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Routledge, London-New York, 2014.

Michel Foucault, Die Heterotopien: Der utopische Körper, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M., 2004.

III U pozadini Što je Zlatko Kopljar učinio u svojoj “viziji” budućnosti muzeja i njihova statusa za suvremenu umjetnost? Rad na prvi pogled nalikuje maketi singularnoga objekta u kojem se dvije institucije od “kultnoga” značaja za kulturu unutar globaliziranoga prostora umreženih subjekata/aktera postavljaju u međusobni odnos. Blizanci su nužnost postojanja našega rizomatskoga doba. Binarni kôd omogućuje ovome svijetu digitalnih komunikacija da uopće funkcionira. Binarne opreke pokazuju, pak, da se autoimunost sustava spram okoline pokazuje kao borba ekonomsko-političko-kulturalno određenoga carstva i mreže njegovih neprijatelja, koja svagda iznova zahtijeva metastabilnost demokratskoga poretka i logiku “izvanrednoga stanja”. Što vrijedi za ekonomiju i politiku, na isti se način zbiva i u suvremenoj umjetnosti. Šok i provokacija, međutim, ne proizlaze iz tzv. umjetničke igre s onim što čini najveći tabu, dogmu i totem ovoga svijeta – stvaranje umjetnoga života/umjetnoga uma (A-life i A-Inteligence) i teror – bez čega ni politika ni religija ne bi imale razlog sukobljavanja i privremenih sporazuma o nenapadanju. Daleko od toga. Umjetnost može biti šokantna i provokativna samo stoga što iznova, u činu dovođenja jezika do slike onoga čudovišnoga kao takvoga, stvara i razara već stvoreni događaj koji je po svojim značajkama “prazan” od bilo kakvih određenja, autoreferencijalno ništavan i otuda istovjetan autizmu i samorefleksiji. Kopljar je Tate Modern i MoMa (London-New York) izlio iz betona i zatvorio im ulaze. Betonski pravokutni prsten MoMa čini to da blizanci (Twins) “okamenjene vječnosti” u svojoj pojavnoj formi više nisu

objekti-u-prostoru. Umjesto toga, oni su zatvoreni u dvostrukoj opni poput tvrđave i fortifikacijskoga sustava unutarnje obrane (Defense). U književnim ogledima, putopisima, romanima, fragmentima o muzealiziranju moderne povijesti i arhivima pamćenja njemački spisatelj W.G. Sebald vjerodostojno pokazuje kako je čitava modernost bila ništa drugo negoli veličajna opsjednutost s izgradnjom svijeta kao muzeja i arhiva apokalipse bez kraja. Utoliko je pravi izraz za Sebaldovu potragu i putovanje rubnim teritorijima suvremenih gradova, uzduž i poprijeko propalih industrijskih postrojenja, tvornica, citadela, čežnja za neumrlom prošlošću zaustavljenom u mediju crno-bijele fotografije. Zazidati prazninu bila je opsesija modernosti u svim diskursima i slikovnoj obuzetosti iskustvom tjelesnosti tijela.15 Što Kopljar vidi kao problem nije više u razmještanjima ideje umjetnosti kao političko-estetske igre u novome ruhu aktivizma i participacije. To je odavno odigrano. Ako još nekoga magično privlači to je samo znak njegove nemisaonosti ili, još gore, nesposobnosti da se uhvati ukoštac s nečime što progoni ne samo filozofe, znanstvenike i umjetnike, nego i ono što je još preostalo od života i njegovih svrha i ciljeva. Pravi izgled muzeja u budućnosti jest zatvorenost i čudovišan susret licem-u-lice s onim što konstituira ono Realno kao totalno i apsolutno “prazno”. Rad ima uz “maketu” još i bitne dodatke. To su dva jednostavna videa: jedan je crni kadar (pozadina) na kojem titra odsjaj laganoga svjetla svijeće, a druga pozadina je luminoscentna kao i odijelo koje je umjetnik nosio u svojim prethodnim filmovima. Kako, dakle, 15 Vidi o tome: Žarko Paić, “Kako zazidati prazninu: Apokalipsa melankolija-arhiv u djelu W.G. Sebalda”, u: Treća zemlja: Tehnosfera i umjetnost, Litteris, Zagreb, 2014., str. 421-455.

pristupiti ne više onome što je između bitka i događaja, slike i medija njezine reprezentacije, već onome što konstituira svojim “praznim” čitav spektralni pogon umjetnosti kao derealiziranoga svijeta? Arhitekti još uvijek nešto grade, iako su im teorije i praktične intervencije u prostor ostale bez “vizija”. Ono viđeno i ne-viđeno iscrpljuju se u pokušaju da se dohvati nebo, pa čitava arhitektura suvremenoga svijeta bezglavo stremi u visine i tako oponaša gotiku u perverznome omjeru kvantitativnoga uvećanja “horror vacui”. Umjesto straha pred nečim izvanjskim i tjeskobe u nečemu unutrašnjem, posljednja tajna razmještanja jest naseljeni i raseljeni teritorij straha-tjeskobe kao prepasti, čudovišne i neljudske istodobno. Ona proizlazi iz konstrukcije Realnoga kao “praznoga”. Što se događa kada muzealiziranje života postane zatvoreni “događaj” kao uvjet mogućnosti nove vizije ne više muzeja, već odnosa umjetnika, svijeta i Realnoga kao “praznoga”, možemo samo pretpostaviti. Ne događa se zapravo ništa. I baš zato što se ne događa ništa (više) spektakularno u pukome nizanju beskonačnoga i bezmjernoga, od arhitekture danas više nema ništa osim singularnih objekata bez utemeljenja u zemlji. Muzeji su grobnice umjetnosti, kako je to izrekao Nietzsche u svojoj viziji ekscentričnoga umjetnika-filozofa za razdoblje prevladavanja epohe nihilizma. Kada se ono “prazno” oslobodi u svojoj energiji i moći stvaranja novih sklopova života, oslobađa se i sama praznina od vlastita straha, tjeskobe i prepasti pred onim što je moguće, ali ne i nužno: da se umjetnost zatvori u onome “praznome” i da od nje više ne preostane ništa drugo osim slike-ideje bez objekta, u čistom stanju-između dvojega. Tate Modern i MoMa su ovdje samo simboli kao što su to bili i srušeni tornjevi blizanaca na Manhattanu u terorističkome napa-

du al-Qaide na New York 11. rujna 2001. Ali simbolička je moć umjetnosti u njezinome ozakonjenju “umjetnika” i njegova “djela”. Bez njih, doduše, prostori izlaganja mogu čak i postojati jer je život postao dizajniran kao estetski šokantno-provokativno-eksperimentalan događaj igre s onim što Realno preobražava u “prazno”, a samo “prazno” postaje jedino “realno”. K20 je tome na putu. Iako se čini da je sve ovdje dovršeno i spremno za uporabu, ono što odlikuje ovaj projekt razmještanja i prostornoga obrata (spatial turn) jest njegova bitna nedovršenost. Umjetnost kao nedovršena igra odgovara svijetu fraktalnih oblika, predimenzioniranome odijelu, zatvorenosti institucija u svoj vlastiti metajezik i stroga samostanska pravila igre, onome “praznome” koje zjapi u vremenu suvremenosti kao njegov totem i tabu, kao njegova prva i posljednja dogma. Umjetnost se mora izlagati. Arhitektura mora graditi. Nedovršeno mora ostati nedovršeno. Prazno mora ostati prazno. Samo je svjetlost u pozadini ono što praznome podaruje njegovu mistiku i njegovo najrealnije moguće postojanje u vremenu. Samo još to? Umjetnost pred zatvaranjem u “prazno” nadilazi svoje bizarne estetske kule bjelokosne i svoj jeftini neuspjeli politički angažman. Vrijeme je već da se odvažno zaputimo izvan ovog začaranoga kruga ništavila i praznine.

MoMA NY beton – concrete, 60 x 17,5 x 80 cm, 2015.

→

TATE MODERN beton – concrete, 60 x 40 x 33 cm, 2015.

→

K20 Empty video, petlja – loop, 2015.

→

Empty

Ivana Mance

Although presented in slightly unexpected forms, the works from the new series by Zlatko Kopljar, Empty, do not shift away from his basic and well-recognized artistic preoccupation. Whatever the subject matter of his works or projects may be, and regardless of whether it is a performance, video-film or another media form, Kopljar’s concern, or to be more precise, his uneasiness about the fate of art and artists in contemporary society always seems to prevail over any other thematic category that enables discussions on a work of art or its identification in the context of contemporary art production. We may reasonably argue that every work of art has a dimension of meta-language, or meta-discourse, for exploring the existing paradigms of understanding art. However, in Kopljar’s work, this inherently philosophical thought is intentionally placed in central position. Moreover, often presented in colossal shapes or expressed in a gesture of pathos, or even directly communicated with the artist’s own body in its strength or helplessness, this grave thought about art and its existence leaves little room for conversations about anything else. The thematic scope also covers Kopljar’s recurring need to define his relationship to the Institution. This particularly refers to art institutions, but it also appertains to all the other institutions that exercise and reproduce social power. In addition to his anthological works from the series Compassion, where he had ritually knelt in front if the New York Stock Exchange, the White House, the Chinese Parliament and other notorious places that symbolize the world order, Kopljar has, more than once, in his familiarly clear and dramatic way, illustrated the antagonism between artist and institution. For instance, he addressed

the issue in one of his performances in which he demolished the gallery walls using a hammer. On another occasion, he pushed a concrete block onto the entrance of a gallery, right before the opening of a grand, representational exhibition. Such artistic gestures might easily be qualified as humanistic rebellion against the system to which the artist wanted to take a critical distance. He wanted to steer his legitimate aggression into the structures he finds responsible for the current state of alienation. However, this is not the case in Empty. There is still a concrete block, though, but it symbolizes only a hint or a distant echo of such rebellion. The block had been pushed onto the entrance to prestigious institutions, but it has melted, (con)formed with their architectural elements. This concrete block, this tiny rebellion, is by no means detached from the institutional complex; it has fully assimilated into it. It is therefore in vain to search for any trail of human presence. These are not ordinary places of alienation, places typical for the modern habitus, for such alienation involves an entity whose relation to the given reality is still active. The places addressed here are the institutions that epitomize power in the world of art. They are presented as ghosts of themselves, as monumentalized casts of their own images. Completely devoid of their content â&#x20AC;&#x201C; of all the glittery lies which they used to participate in the creation and maintenance of the all-pervading simulacrum of social reality, of the world in which we have long existed and to which we have always contributed, even in times when we wanted to be critical â&#x20AC;&#x201C; these architectural structures express the true emptiness of sense. It is an emptiness existing behind the illusion of reality, but it never goes beyond it. It does

not dispel this illusion nor does it impose itself as the superior and true reality. This emptiness is merely a gaping hole; it is a nothingness that remains after the storm of a frantic trade. What Kopljar describes is a genuine deficiency hiding beneath the superfluity of political, social and art institutions. This deficiency underlies the system in which the impetus for profit generation thoroughly eliminates every aspiration for something beautiful, good or real. In other words, it eliminates everything it ought to regulate, encourage and protect. Holding out as mere production sites or places of income accumulation, art institutions have long ceased to be places of artistic ideation. They have turned into places that trivialize art, with the aim of extracting its capital value. Their role, from the perspective of the allegedly preserved self-sufficiency of art, is truly insignificant. And it is precisely this meta-physical insignificance that Kopljar seeks to express. He does so by displaying small scale models of architecturally very attractive museums – presented in their existing forms or in their planned reconstructions. These are technically generated concrete casts, art “objects” that, in aesthetical terms, have no desire to become sculptures, but thanks to their corpuscularity, they feign the aura of classical works of art. Nevertheless, instead of conveying aesthetical impressions, these objects function primarily in a conceptual sense – they express an essentially absurd idea of presenting art institutions as small sculptural models of themselves. Shown as plain architectural structures, they have lost the splendor of their actual forms and they have been reduced to the three-dimensional casts of concrete. Even the material signifies trivialization, for it generally supports the hyper-production of architectural bodies bereft of

cultural value or social meaning. In this process, the Institution is exposed for what it truly is: a shadow of its own being, a trunk carrying spectacular forms and embodying Nothing, a structure whose space is paradoxically filled with emptiness. While the type of artistic behavior identified as “institutional criticism” – as already mentioned – entailed a socially engaged entity that provoked and challenged the authority of institutions, Kopljar’s decision to return to bare mimesis – to a passive imitation of reality, without any particular ambition for an artistic transformation, suggests that such an entity has capitulated. Not only has the artistic entity abandoned social engagement, but it has also openly acknowledged its own helplessness. It has conceded to having its concrete block drowned in institutional spaces and become a witness to his own rebellion being melted into institutional walls. One may notice that the dwarfish mimicries of architectural grandeur are infused with irony. They are certainly are; however, the irony refers not only to these structures, but also to the artist’s creative scope, which is constituently related to the institutions. In any respect, the disappearance of artistic entity, in its antagonism with the institutions of power, is clearly imminent. More precisely, and honestly, it has disappeared long since; and now comes the time for mourning.

EMPTY IN-BETWEEN: Closing Time for Art?

Žarko Paić

I Placements The greatest taboo, dogma, and totem of that which we call contemporary art is its paradoxical task to make itself timeless by entirely blending in with the space of its disappearance. Although it has declared its mission in the spirit of absolute de-foundation of the fundamental idea of imitating God and nature (mimesis), arranging the Euclidean space and opening many worlds of difference, which assumes a step beyond the boundaries of creation and the created, something still remains after this monstrous prohibition. The iconoclasm of the image and the transition of the realm of speech into the corporality of events have enabled the emergence of something which has been outlined in the works of great thinkers/artists of the 20th century, Duchamp and Artaud, since the very beginning of the contemporary obsession with the visualization technology. This is the experience of the end of metaphysics and its transition into pataphysics without/of moving up and down. What they anticipated in the impossibility of further depiction and representation of the pure artwork corresponds to the ideas of the philosophical and scholarly turn in relation to something which in analogy to the linguistic turn into image can be termed spatial turn.1 When in the idea of contemporary art we are not anymore able to find God, nature, man, or the world in the metaphysical sense, we face empty signifiers. The replacement does not simply come in for something original, so that maybe programming of digital 1

See Žarko Paić, Posthumano stanje: Kraj čovjeka i mogućnosti druge povijesti, Litteris, Zagreb, 2011

media could replace the painting medium reaching from Giorgio de Chirico to Francis Bacon. On the contrary, the hybris logic is the replacement semiotic in the impact of that which cannot be perceived by the eye anymore, or formulated within language rules. Contemporary art is in its endless reproduction without/of the origin the life of an undefined event. All that corresponds to constant staging of that which haunts it like a ghost, which actually reminds us of the problem of the “void” in Gothic times (horror vacui). However, this is not anymore fear from something that has the characteristics of existential anxiety, that heroic time of high modernism, which in Munch’s expressionism and Sartre’s and Camus’s existentialism raised the question of the meaning of the subject and art as pure contingency. This is about something entirely different. In its reduction to the space of immersion into the pure event of virtual actualization, contemporary art faces the question of its “open reticence”. In his work Being and Event (L’etre et l’événement) Alain Badiou called this a void in-between being as multitude and event as a time structure of the new, which started the breach with the previous course of history.2 The void is, therefore, not a place between something that is “this” and “that”. The void “is not”. Because it is “not”, the fact that it “is” empty in its “emptiness” can become a singular event of new space and time or stay void forever. Contemporary art is shockingly and provocatively silent about that which still imbues it with creative and disruptive pathos of revelation since the moment of its reconciliation with the space of displaying events. Museums of contemporary art live of that dogma and 2 Alain Badiou, L’etre et l’événement, Sauil, Paris, 1988

taboo. They are totems of their godlessness, facing that which constitutes their essence – preserving the experience of abyss and archiving the awareness of their own place and time in the Empty In-Between. The space of endless lasting of contemporary art at the time of actualization is represented by the de-realized zone of the sacred. Therefore all the museums of contemporary art are either faceless hyper-modern cathedrals or spectacular hangars at the outskirts of cities, apocalyptic gathering places of urban nomads, architecture of sublime emptiness, which always counts on three key words as a replacement for the classic aesthetics of beauty, majesty, and fantasy: shock, provocation, and experiment. Without their efficiency in public display space of the society and politics of global capitalism, contemporary art and architecture are losing their last reasons of existence. This is nothing new, of course. The problem of the logic of substitution for that which has irretrievably vanished through historical progress and the development of technical science is only in the fact that today everything is becoming art without an object, because the subject that created the new does not exist anymore. We have the technosphere instead. It cybernetically creates new life with the help of trans-genetic mutations like in the projects of Eduardo Kac.3 Without an object and without authentic temporality, contemporary art can just stage “events” as media-generated images. Here, of course, the difference between the real and the fictive 3

See Ingeborg Reichle, Art in the Age of Technoscience: Genetic Engineering,

Robotics, and Artificial Life in Contemporary Art, Vienna – New York, 2009

and Claudia Gianetti, Digitale Aesthetik: Einführung, http://www.medien

kunstnetz/de/themen/aesthetik_des digitalen

is not decisive anymore. The essence is reduced to shock, provocation, and the experiment of life itself in its remaining freedom of transformation into an art event. Giorgio Agamben has therefore understood this era of profanation as the logic of openness without that which Heidegger saw already in the painting of Cézanne and Klee – from pre-pictorial to primal pictorial, starting from the immersion in the secret of the creative act. Openness has today become simply “empty”.4 Nothing happens with it anymore in the sense of the emerging event of the new that deeply shatters the human experience of living. The “empty” openness of current time does not bring anything else apart from the spectacularity of the “new” performance. Each performance is the more “empty” as it is more shocking and provocative. The experiment with the new in its frenzied repetition, termed by technology and information philosopher Gilbert Simondon as meta-stability5 causes the effect of perceptive fatigue. From an active and anticipative public, observers, who must participate in the event, not because they want to, but because without them pure indifference replaces the amazement and the event goes on endlessly, turn into reticent structures with “empty gaze”. But this time it is not the gaze of the Other, but the gaze of the tired god Dionysus and his homeostatic eye he looks at himself with. Thus at the time of spatial turn, contemporary art shows three stages of contemplation: 4

Giorgio Agamben, The Man Without Content, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1999

Geilbert Simondon, L’individuation psychique et collective, Aubier, Paris, 1989/2007

1) The mimetic – nature is distributed in a way that its primordial creative power is neutralized by engaging it into the laboratory case of emerging aesthetic object as “new nature” that reaches from artificial human parks to genetic manipulation; 2) The representational – the subject is constituted by the gaze of the Other, in the language of the unconscious as a “wishing machine”, ranging from the sound and fury of Berlin Dadaism to the schizophrenia of identity at the time of digital image from which reality has evaporated like air from Duchamp’s bottle driers; 3) The informational – the condition and event are produced from the need of the system to survey its active users at the time of “control societies” by giving them the freedom to experiment within the limits of the Father/Law of the corporative net of media events. The distribution of the performance space of the artwork as an event from the position of the artist and the event as a work from the position of the “Big Third” in the form of a museum institution with the right to the executive decision on exhibiting-in-time leads to the situation in which art history as the history of the idea of art from the reign of language to the power of the image takes place within the circle of imitating the “original”, presenting a “double” and constructing the “non-material” in one and the same world. This world is placed in its own Empty In-Between. This is not exhibition space for something in the sense of an object. If an idea as a concept is exhibited, then the idea of the museum of contemporary art seems obsolete. Ideas

do not get exhibited. But money is exhibited in the form of symbolical and actual exchange of the perversion of value, as well as the place of representation of its power like corporative headquarters, i.e. banks and gold reserve treasuries of imperially networked states within the global order. When an idea becomes an art “object”, then the problem of the subject is in the fact that beyond the idea it sees nothing but another “object”. In this delirium of endless value increasing the desert of interobjectivity of our time is growing. This is not fear of emptiness anymore, like the one replaced by the grandeur of crucified God in the cathedral architecture of Gothic times, the link between Heaven and Earth, the mortal and the immortal. This is also not anymore the anxiety of the modern subject fleeing into the worlds of its own fiction in order not to participate in the orgies of mass adoration of sacrificing the Other in the name of nation/ race/culture and endless power of technology over life as such. Now we speak of the void without its signifier and the signified, about the empty in-between, where this “in-between” does not connect the being to the event. The absence of the relation or connection between these two instances only shows that this other void, unlike the empty center of the power of the Other – God, man, machine, network or universal life code – is now not located anywhere else but in the essence of the world. Contemporary art is trying to establish the relation of mutual “creative indifference” with it. What in this condition “in-between” really is empty is in itself by no means futile and waste. This is not an empty portion of space, but it is space and time itself, emerging from it, not preconditioned by total void and therefore emptier than empty. When the openness of contemporary thinking is

reduced to the construction of space as a network of events, then it is clear that any placement of institutions in which this happens is temporary meta-stability of a closed system.6 Art is closed in itself because it has been reduced only to criticism of the political representation of power and the criticism of aesthetic life production as a technical object.7 There is nothing else in-between. Apart from that which is empty.

Gilles Deleuze, Différence et répetition, P.U.F., Paris, 2000

7 Jacques Rancière, Le Partage du sensible: Estétique et politique, Le Fabrique-Edition, Paris, 2000

II Empty In his new work K20, Zlatko Kopljar focuses on the question of arranging the space of art performance as exhibiting-in-space. To be concerned with the spatial turn means to start from the assumption that Arthur C. Danto’s classic definition of art as a “legalized” institutionalized activity in the space in-between the system and the world of life has a network of events as its precondition. And it cannot be disentangled or destroyed from the outside.8 Art functions like any other system in the complex technosphere world, reaching from law and politics to economy, science, and religion. Precisely because art “functions” in accordance with set rules, its symbolical function of “legalization” of the event space cannot be considered sustainable anymore if there is no interplay between the center and the fringe, institutionalized power and active counter-power. It is paradoxical that the amount of art today is increasing not because there is a need for “spiritual content”, as that would be contrary to Hegel’s theory about the “end of art” after the disappearance of the spiritual need for it. Instead, there is desire for new events as a perpetuating mechanism of the capitalist information culture. Irrespectively of their aesthetic merit, they create the seemingly new behind the façade of staging a spectacle. It is entirely irrelevant what the event is about. Shock, provocation, and experiment reach from the banality of everyday life to sublime traces of transgressing death, from cannibalism to raising a human in 8 Arthur C. Danto, After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1998

vitro. Jean-Luc Nancy is right when in his book The Muses he says: “In an imageless world in this sense a real flood comes about, a vortex of images that confuse us, a vortex in which art is confused. This is the proliferation of the observed, multiple reflections of the visible or sensory, which do not point at anything. These are observations that do not show anything and do not see anything: this is viewing without vision. (Let us just think of the disappearance of the romantic character of the artist-visionary.)”9 When thus the reason for engaging into the distribution of space in contemporary art is not anymore a step towards breaking up the particles and bringing space to fractal geometry of the emergence of the micro-policy of events, then we can observe something very ordinary, even trivial, but for this reason decisive for that which Zlatko Kopljar undertook in his work titled Empty. First, our cognition in the articulation of thinking has today undoubtedly become mediated by “viewing without vision” to such extent that we do not perceive anymore that no spatial intervention is coming from the sphere of the so-called social participation of the artist.10 On the contrary, these interventions are systematic re-construction of the order of capitalist modernization. In this sense architecture is not building something “new” but re-shuffling structures and particles within the network of the new context and situation. There is no more vision. But there are monstrous structures, constructed better or worse. The intervention in the space of contemporary art, to 9 Jean-Luc Nancy, The Muses, Stanford University Press, Redwood City (CA), 1997 10 See Juliane Rebentisch, Theorien der Gegenwartskunst: zur Einführung, Junius, Berlin 2013, pp. 58-91

make the paradox complete, comes from temporary suspension and neutralization of the “sanctity” of the exhibiting institution and the politics of event representation as a protected work. Openness necessarily closes in. When the image in the contemporary art of the work as a body and the body as event does not relate to anything beyond the self-referential circle of meaning, then it becomes clear that we are dealing with an entirely different understanding and approach to that which has eerily invaded our world and even settled in it without us noticing it, because we have lost our original gift for the viewing (vision) of emptiness. The technique of blank stare is not specific of eastern wisdom like Zen Buddhism. This is a characteristic of contemplation. It is the point of departure of modern subjectivity. But when this “emptiness” is settled at the core or the essence of space as time of total mobilization of art = capital, to use Joseph Beuys’s formula, then there is no difference between art and architecture, because “emptiness” is not coming from the outside. It is not somewhere outside this circle of understanding. The problem is that “emptiness” is becoming the surrogate for the “essence” of art in its placement of zones from the sacred to the profane and beyond. Once again: at the time of informational distribution the very world picture is located in empty space. This is the space in-between, not connecting two separate units and drawing its meaning from them. On the contrary, the “empty” place becomes a new eccentric center and constitutes everything else as Other. Museums of contemporary art are necessarily based on that experience of ontological and structural emptiness in their in principle open reticence

of the worlds. And what happens when they are not there anymore or when they are temporarily closed for “reconstruction”? Does then shock-provocation-experiment come about, without the world of reticent exposure of the work as event and event as work? What can be art at all when museums like MoMa in New York or Tate Modern in London announce their closing because of the change of their location in the space of the Real and construction/extension of the “new”, as we have been informed by the media? Architect Jean Nouvel, undoubtedly one of crucial figures of contemporary architecture, a collocutor in the dialogue with the simulation and simulacrum philosopher Jean Baudrillard11, has raised controversies because of the idea of constructing a too high tower into which he would place the galleries of the future MoMa. The project named 53W53 for the highest skyscraper in New York became in this way more than an architectural intervention into space that does not belong to the earth but to the sky intersected by concrete, glass, and emptiness. Zlatko Kopljar made one more step in contemplating the relation of art and its exhibition space at the institution of the contemporary art museum. He set in a relation, which also means in question, the distribution of space and the construction of art as a synthesis of life and aesthetic experiences in the complex structure of today’s post-industrial societies. What happens when we place the most important institutions of “art” into the enclosed area of suspension of art’s impact as a sublime Father/Law from which it draws its temporary meanings? 11 Jean Baudrillard and Jean Nouvel, The Singular Objects of Architecture, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London, 2005

Nothing is warranted forever. We have seen how Jean-Luc Nancy shows that at the time of proliferation of observation/observed that which constitutes the “essence” of contemporary art is not just an art painting/image. This is about the iconoclasm of life.12 It is the origin of the visualization of events. The media image of the world necessarily requires an ideological construction of meaning. But when the observation of the observed is equalized to a “blank stare” then everything that remains of contemporary art museums is informational placement. It is rooted in the image of the Real as “empty”. Zlatko Kopljar has brought two institutions of contemporary art as profanation zones of new sacredness (MoMa and Tate Modern) into relation by fencing them in. The vision of the new is not anymore viewed through the possibility of creating “new” space on-Earth and in-Heaven. Everything that is new at all can only be contemporary when it synthetizes the experience of the historical past, the perception of the present and the contingency of unforeseeable future. Experimental features are reduced to interplay of ideas and not to the construction of the “Real”. This makes the difference between art and architecture even when the latter sees itself as interplay of forms and changes of foundations of the material world we live in. The synthetic era of life can also be seen in scientific nomenclature and the definitions of media art, reaching from synthetic biology and anthropology to new media. If the empty “Real” stands for the impossibility of further “progress” and “development” of the idea of contemporary art, then time has come for tackling the issue of its boundaries and the question what this 12

Žarko Paić, Slika bez svijeta: Ikonoklazam suvremene umjetnosti, Litteris, Zagreb, 2006

idea may mean in the future. The spatial turn has become experimental play of metamorphous structures in biological, social, and political sense.13 That which Michael Foucault has delineated by his heterotopia notion appears here as a synthetic dystopia of the political and aesthetic experiment with institutions and their impact in culturally mapped space of global order.14

Barney Warf and Santa Arias (eds.), The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Routledge, London-New York, 2014

Michael Foucault, Die Hatarotopien: Der utopische Kรถrper, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M., 2004

III In the Background What did Zlatko Kopljar do in his “vision” of the museums’ future and their status in contemporary art? At first glance his work resembles a model of a singular object in which two institutions of “cult” importance for culture in the globalized space of networked subjects/protagonists are interrelated. Twins are the necessity of our rhysomatic era. The binary code enables this world of digital communications to function at all. On the other hand, binary juxtapositions show that the auto-immunity of the system towards the environment is demonstrated as a struggle of an economically, politically, and culturally determined reign and a network of its enemies, which over and over demands meta-stability of the democratic order and the “state of emergency” logic. What is true of economy and politics, happens in the same way in contemporary art. However, shock and provocation do not emerge from the so-called artistic interplay with the greatest taboo, dogma, and totem of this world – creating artificial life/artificial mind (A-life and A-intelligence) and the terror – without which neither politics nor religion would have a reason for conflicts and temporary peace agreements. Not even remotely. Art can be shocking and provocative just because it again, in the act of bringing the language to the image of the monstrous as such, creates and destroys an already created event, which is in its characteristics “empty” of any determinations, self-referentially void and therefore equal to autism and self-reflection. Kopljar’s Tate Modern and MoMa (London-New York) are cast in concrete with no entrances. The concrete rectangular

rampart of the MoMa creates the effect that the Twins of the “petrified eternity” are not objects-in-space in their appearance anymore. Instead, they are enclosed in a double envelope like a fortification and a system of inner defense. In his literary essays, travelogues, novels, and fragments on musealization of modern history and memory archives, German writer W.G. Sebald credibly shows that the entire modernity was nothing else than a grand obsession with constructing the world as a museum and an archive of the endless apocalypse. Therefore, the right description of Sebald’s search and journeying along the outskirts of modern cities, through dilapidated industrial plants, factories, and citadels is yearning for still living past frozen in the medium of black and white photography. To wall-in the void was the obsession of modernity in all its discourses and the pictorial obsession with the experience of the corporeality of the body.15 What Kopljar sees as a problem is not anymore contained in the placement of the idea of art as a political and aesthetic game in a new cloak of activism and participation. This game was over long ago. If it still magically attracts someone, this is only a sign of lack of his or her cognitive abilities or, even worse, inability to face something that haunts not only philosophers, scholars, and artists, but also that which has remained of life, its purposes and aims. The real appearance of the future museum is reticence and a monstrous encounter face to face with that which constitutes the Real as total and absolutely “empty”. 15

See Žarko Paić, “Kako zazidati prazninu: Apokalipsa-melankolija-arhiv u djelu W.G. Sebalda” (How to wall in the void: apocalypse-melancholyarchive in the work of W. G. Sebald), in: Treća zemlja: Tehnosfera i umjetnost, Litteris, Zagreb, 2014, pp. 421-455

Kopljar’s work has some important supplements to the “model”. They are two simple videos: one is a black frame (background) where a reflection of mild candle light flickers, and the other background is luminescent like the suit the artist had on in his previous films. How can we then approach that which is not anymore between the being and the event, the image and the medium of its representation, but with its “emptiness” constitutes an entire spectral art enterprise as a de-realized world? Architects are still building something, although their theories and practical spatial interventions lack “visions”. What is seen and not seen is exhausted in the attempt of reaching the sky, so that the entire architecture of the contemporary world precipitately strives for heights, thus imitating the Gothic period in the perverse proportion of quantitative increase of the horror vacui. Instead of fearing something external and the anxiety in something internal, the last secret of placement is the populated and dispersed territory of fear and anxiety as bewilderment, monstrous and inhuman at the same time. It follows from the construction of the Real as “empty”. We can only assume what happens when musealization of life becomes an enclosed “event” as the precondition of the possibility of a new vision not anymore of a museum, but the relation of the artist, world, and the Real as “empty”. Actually nothing happens. And because nothing spectacular happens (anymore) in the mere succession of endless and immeasurable, today nothing is left of architecture apart from singular objects which are not rooted in the ground. As Nietzche said in his vision of the eccentric artist-philosopher for the period of overcoming the nihilism epoch, museums are the tombs of art. When the “empty” is released in

its energy and ability to create new life structures, the very void is liberated from its fear, anxiety, and bewilderment before that which is possible, but not necessary: that art should be contained in “emptiness” and that nothing more remains of it apart from the image-idea without an object, in a pure state in-between. Tate Modern and MoMa are here just symbols like the demolished Twin Towers in Manhattan during the Al-Qaeda terrorist attack on New York on the 11th of September 2001. The entire symbolic power of art is in the legalization of the “artist” and his “work”. Exhibition spaces can actually exist without them, because life has become designed as aesthetic shocking-provocative-experimental event of a play with that which transforms the Real into “empty”, while the “empty” becomes the only “real”. K20 acts along these lines. Although it seems that here everything is finished and ready for use, the characteristic of this placement and spatial turn project is its essential unfinished quality. Art as an unfinished game corresponds to a world of fractal shapes, an over-dimensional robe, and enclosure of institutions in their meta-language and strict monastery-like rules of the game, the “empty” that gapes in the contemporary era as its totem and taboo, as its first and last dogma. Art must be exhibited. Architecture must build. The unfinished must remain unfinished. The empty must stay empty. Only the light in the background is that which provides the empty with its mystique and its most realistic existence in time. Just that? Art facing the enclosure in “emptiness” surpasses its bizarre aesthetic ivory towers and its cheap and unsuccessful political involvement. It is time that we boldly abandon this vicious circle of nothingness and emptiness.

Zlatko Kopljar (1962.) je vizualni umjetnik. Izlagao je na 26. bijenalu u Sao Paulo, Muzeju suvremene umjetnosti u Zagrebu, Muzeju moderne i suvremene umjetnosti u Rijeci, The Kitchen - New York, Gallery Manes - Prag, itd. Radovi su mu u kolekcijama Muzeja suvremene umjetnosti u Zagrebu, Muzeja moderne i suvremene umjetnosti u Rijeci, Muzeja moderne umjetnosti u Zagrebu, Filip Trade kolekcije te mnogim privatnim kolekcijama. Završio je slikarstvo 1991. u klasi profesora Carmela Zottia na Akademiji likovnih umjetnosti u Veneciji, Italija. Živi i radi u Zagrebu.

Zlatko Kopljar (1962) is a visual artist. He has exhibited at Sao Paulo Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka, The Kitchen - New York, Gallery Manes - Praha, etc. His work are in collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka, Museum of Modern Art Zagreb, Filip Trade collection, etc. He graduated painting in 1991 with professor Carmelo Zotti from Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, Italy and lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia.

Izdavač – Publisher Art radionica Lazareti – Lazareti Art Workshop Za izdavača – For the publisher Srdjana Cvijetić Suizdavač – Co-publisher Muzej moderne i suvremene umjetnosti – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Za suizdavača – For the co-publisher Slaven Tolj Urednik – Editor Slaven Tolj Tekstovi – Texts Ivana Mance, Žarko Paić Prijevod – Translation Andy Jelčić, Lidija Toman Fotografije – Photographs Ivan Vranjić Grafičko oblikovanje i prijelom – Graphic design & lay-out Marino Krstačić-Furić & Ana Tomić Tisak – Printing Kerschoffset, Zagreb Naklada – Print run 300 ARL, Dubrovnik Broj kataloga – Catalogue no. 343 © MMSU, Rijeka, 2015. ISBN 978-953-6501-98-4 CIP zapis dostupan u računalnom katalogu Sveučilišne knjižnice Rijeka pod brojem 130722084. CIP zapis dostupan u računalnom Skupnom katalogu hrvatskih knjižnica pod brojem 550908031 Zahvale – Acknowledgments Žarko Paić, Ivana Mance, Sven Franc, DIART d.o.o., Petar Stjepanović, Boris Poljak, Studio Guberović Podržano od – Supported by Ministarstvo kulture Republike Hrvatske, Grad Rijeka, Grad Dubrovnik