On total work of art, dismantled

Abstract

The text discusses several recent works by five artists and one artistic duo originating from Croatia: through the works in question it seeks to accentuate some of the key elements that could describe something as the “national art scene”. Issues of cultural identity, recent history, art history and its myths exist along with artistic practices whose means of expression are far from any local context, but all of them call for international audience. The point of departure is the notion of “total work of art” coined more or less in times when the nation state and, consequently, national art were invented. But, just like the totality of artistic experience, once established, has been dismantled, works by Ana Hušman, Lala Rašić, Ivana Franke, David Maljković, Damir Očko, and Fokus grupa (Iva Kovač and Elvis Krstulović), questioning perception, identity construction, modernist past and present of permanent transition, language and its performativity, do not corroborate national self-presentation in contemporary art. On the contrary, they cut into its weak points, not only with their double and plural identities, but also with their multilayered openness towards other cultural contexts.