The exhibition “TV
Gallery” has been conceived in order to contextualize and represent
specific television production (“TV Gallery”) that was created at
Belgrade Television and broadcasted on the Yugoslav TV network from
1984 – 1991. The exhibition is dealing with cultural policy,
conditions of art and cultural production, public television and
production and broadcasting of video art in territory of former
Yugoslavia. The author of television show “TV Gallery” - Dunja
Blažević – is a curator and art historian who used to run gallery
of Student's Cultural Center in Belgrade during 1970-is as one of the
rare vivid spaces for art experiments, expanded and new media
practices, critical perspectives and for strong international
collaboration among artists. Since 1981. Dunja edited TV show "The Other Art" at the TV Belgrade, which is actually a forerunner of "TV Gallery" series. As Dunja Blažević stresses in the
interview made for the occasion of the exhibition, with her
engagement on television, she actually continued curatorial practice
in another medium, in TV medium, which appeared to be one of the most
natural public places for promotion, discussion and critical overview
of what was called “new art practices”, and especially of video
art production. She also stresses that “TV Gallery” project
represents certain homage to the “TV Gallery” project by Gerry
Schum, produced and broadcasted at German national television, ten
years before her own production achievement, still under a different
circumstances.
From one hand, project such is “TV Gallery”
television production by Dunja Blažević was possible because of the
way how cultural policies were organized during times of socialism in
Yugoslavia during 1970-is and 1980-is, and especially how production
at public television was organized, still containing “niches” for
promotion of emancipatory and educational practices besides general
control of what should be publicly broadcasted. Those were “niches”
which were possible to win over for promotion and analysis of exactly
those practices. One could say that nonporosity
of television media in those times was much less then it is
today. In that constellation, unique editorial policy, which appeared
to be successful, was that marginal art practices have the right to
be publicly represented and to be publicly present, as much as any
other national or gender minority. It meant that editorial policy in
a way used values engraved in the very ideology of socialists
society. On the other hand, landscape and trend of democratization of
art in that period played important roll in emergence of the “TV
Gallery”. “Democratization of art” from curatorial position
meant mediation between artist and their work and relationship with
the audience. It meant both escape from traditional media of art and
embracement of all alternative and new media possibilities, and
reflection on the very nature of art, which was the basis for
expanding the field of art. As Dunja Blažević put it,
democratization of art also meant specific relation to the audience,
since it was important to go out from closed and elitists gallery
spaces and to win over new ways of communication and to enter public
space in a different ways. As artist Dalibor Martinis put it in the
debate “Art and Public Television”, artists of that time didn't
want to stay closed up in a gallery, but rather they searched for new
ways how to initiate reflex in the society, how to criticize ideology
and how to deal with the nature of art and media. This attitude was
sort of correction of “official” understanding of
“democratization of art”, which was ideology based (such was for
example the project of introducing philharmonic orchestra to the
workers in the factories). One of the crucial art practices that
emerged in that time was video art, which was technologically the
most appropriate to be distributed through broadcasting system,
although in many cases it represented critique of exactly this mass
media even in those early time of television development.
Professional production of video art, which characterized art
practices of that time, started quite early (1972) and it was
interesting that public television was the place when extensive
production took place. Since there were no independent production
studios in the former Yugoslavia and video production has been
technologically demanding, “TV Gallery” opened up the space for
artists to work with professional video technology and to have
broadcasting system opened for distribution of their production. This
is one of the emancipatory moments and world wide unique example,
which testifies about broader cultural and political landscape of
that time. One important fact that launched video production and new
art practices in that time is influence of latest trends in film
practice and production as well (nothing was the same after Godard),
and especially influence of experimental film production which was
quite developed in that time. This was also important moment for
production of “TV Gallery” show, since it also represents
collaborative and open platform of author and editor of the show and
many other people: movie and television directors, artists,
researchers, art historians, etc.
At the exhibition in
Gallery Nova in Zagreb, there are twelve shows of “TV Gallery”
presented (of over 90 that were produced in the period from
1984-1990. and only around 20 were preserved at the Television of
Serbia). Although the exhibition is showing selection of the whole
production, those shows are thematizing wide range of still present
questions in art and its representation, in the same time depicting
wide range of “TV Gallery” production itself. Themes are ranging
from historical avangards (Russian avangarde, avangarde movements in
Yugoslavia), neo-avangard of the 1960-is and 1970-is, architecture,
comics, video art, design, literature, “new wave”, etc. As it has
been said in the introductory text of the exhibition, those shows are
interesting as a symptom of not only cultural and art scene of that
period in Yugoslavia, but as well as public television, society and
the state where these projects were possible. Today, media language
has changed, it has matured and transformed itself and that could be
the reason why “niches” which is possible to conquer with
marginal and/or educational content, don't exist anymore. This is
followed by flow of capital and commercialization of television,
where most of the educational contents is seen as uninteresting and
nonprofitable, which makes television today more as “a tool for
oppression” then “ a tool for democratization”, which existed
as a myth for a long time.
The
exhibition “TV Gallery” is part of the project "Political
practices of (post)Yugoslav Art"