Interview mit Sanja Iveković

Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten | Artist
Talk


Exhibition 08.03.2012 – 29.04.2012


Since her first appearance in the context of the “New Art
Practice” in Yugoslavia of the early 1970s, in her works Sanja
Iveković has transformed the medial construction of images and
the constellations of power which they conceal. Here the artist
is primarily concerned with the exploration of images and spaces
attached to women. Iveković also extended critical reflections of
the media to the analysis of the institutional conditions and
rituals of the art scene. The series of three performances from
this period and presented in Moments, actively brings the public
into the interplay of media presence, as well as real presence
and absence.
Sanja Iveković is one of the first artists in former Yugoslavia
to have combined performance and video art. Over the course of
the 1990s, she gave her work greater political accentuation and,
as feminist activist, also initiated important projects. Her
performance Practice Makes a Master will be re-enacted by Sonja
Pregrad as part of the exhibition opening on March 17, 2012 and
March 18, 2012 at 4 pm.


Short Biography
Sanja Iveković (*1949 in Zagreb, Croatia, former Yugoslavia)
studied from 1968 to 1971 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb.
Her photo montages, videos, performances and installations
emerging since the early 1970s have been characterized by a
critical questioning of the mass media and their identity-forging
potential. By personally entering into public discourse ‒ whether
in the form of photographic representations in the media, or as
the actual protagonist of performances ‒ Iveković brings out into
the open the collective social codes of behavior based on
gender-specific standardized patterns in mass media. As one of
the first explicitly feminist artists in Croatia, she has also
been the facilitator and founder of a large number of political
initiatives including the Women Artists’ Center Elektra and the
Center for Women’s Studies in Zagreb. Iveković participated in
numerous international exhibitions including documenta 11, and 12
and Manifesta 2. In November 2011, her retrospective Lady Rosa of
Luxembourg took place at the MoMA New York.