We were walking on the street one day, I remember it well. Tom said, “We should form a group,” and an idea came to me in a flash: ViGo. I then explained to him the acronym of our surnames: Vijatović and Gotovac and the connection to Jean Vigo. Because what we felt at that moment was based on Tom’s assertion that everything is art, that everything is film.
(Notes from the margin, interview, Danka Šošić and Žarko Vijatović)
Listening to Vijatović’s stories of (non-)activities, the relationship between Vijatović and Gotovac is best described by the antago-nistic moments of love and hate, by individual and collective work, by spontaneity and intellect, and by impulse and reflection.
The aim of this exhibition is to outline the contours of the invaluable relationships that go beyond a concentration on individual activities and at the same time dismiss those collectives to create an art community without borders and strictly regulated rules.
(“Miki, look at this!” - The Potentially Important Activities of the ViGo Group – by Leila Topić”)
Tom and Žarko established an internal network that roughly simulated the situation in Duchamp’s schizophrenically divided brain, in which only a disciplined analysis of the game provided a respite from unrestrained comprehension.
(On The Importance of the Dash: The Past Tense and The Future Perfect by Feđa Vukić)
The Gotovac phenomenon is a confirmation that the greatness of one's art can be determined by the power of its influence on other artists. In this respect, Gotovac is an artist’s artist, one of the few on the Croatian scene, except perhaps for Ivan Kožarić while he was active. What is important is that the multi-faceted persona that we identify with him was the cornerstone of his artistic collaborations, the most well-known of which are the performances with Vlasta Delimar and Milan Božić, Slaven Tolj, or the more structured ones, like the project Weekend Art: Hallelujah the Hill with Ivana Keser and Aleksandar Battista Ilić, and finally, the more entertaining ones like those with Vladimir Dodig Trokut, which for decades had its ups and downs, all the way to the ecstasy of the irresistibly literal and mutual titillation of testicles.
(Branko Franceschi, introductory text)
