THE OTHER FACE OF GORGONA
Lecture on Mrs. Secretary, finances, Zagreb's GEFF, the correspondence of M. Horvat and on Mr. Fry
Are there any details about the life and activities of the members of Gorgona, which have passed unnoticed by the professional public or are completely unknown to a wider audience? It seems that nothing new can emerge after two valuable books published by the Museum of Contemporary Art (the first in 1977 by Nena Dimitrijevic, the second in 2002 by Marija Gattin) or Croatian National Televison documentary by Ana Marija Habjan produced in 2012. We should bear in mind the fact that any new documents on Zagreb’s secret "Art Group" are provocative material for all the museum institutions that currently sum information on the art production of the sixties in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. One of these institutions is certainly MoMA's collection, which holds Gorgona’s collective ID, which Josip Vaništa has made in edition of six or seven copies. The lecture will surprise audience with the documents, photos and artifacts totally unknown to the professional community.
ŽELJKO KIPKE (Čakovec, 1953) is painter and writer, and occasionally works in the film medium. Kipke graduated painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in1976. In the first half of the eighties, he was making short films in S8 format which documented his actions in public spaces. He represented Croatia at the Venice Biennale in 1993, and two years later at the Cairo Biennale. He writes essays on experimental film and visual art in daily papers and periodicals. He is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and the Croatian Society of Film Critics (HDFK). He was commissioner of the Croatian national pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. Till today, Kipke has published nine books - from the collection of theoretical essays on contemporary art, and collection of short stories to a one-year diary, a catalog of dreams and book on coincidences. Željko Kipke lives in Zagreb, Croatia.
The lecture is besides Željko Kipke's own research, based on research by Tihomir Jukić and Marinko Sudac for the monograph on Gorgona Group written by Ješa Denegri.
