09 / 10 / 2017
PERFORMANCE
Tomislav Gotovac, performed by BADco. / Adapting to objects on Marshal Tito Square – Marshal Tito Square I love you! / 14.10.2017
On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, Tomislav Gotovac Institute and Zagreb-based collective BADco. invite you to the reconstruction:
Tomislav Gotovac, performed by BADco.
Adapting to objects on Marshal Tito Square – Marshal Tito Square I love you!
14. October 1997 / 2017 at 12:00 at Meštrović's The Well of Life
“The city is a being. The city is a degree of identifying with life itself.”
Tomislav Gotovac (Sombor, 1937 - Zagreb, 2010), performer, conceptual artist and film director, performed Adapting to objects on Marshal Tito Square – Marshal Tito Square I love you! on the 14th of October 1997 at the opening of The Week of Performance organized by Zagreb's SCCA and the independent artistic project Doma - A casa - At Home. In the thirty years since his first performance Happ our – Happening and up until 1997, Gotovac performed a series of actions transposing his intimate, artistic and fantastic relationship towards the city he lived in into its public spaces. The most renown among these performances was Lying naked on the asphalt, kissing the asphalt (Zagreb, I love you!), the performance recalled in this title.
A quotidian stroll over a pedestrian crossing, dribbling with a ball or sitting on the edge of an urban bench becomes part of a street choreography. The performance begins and, after a circular tour of the west side of the Square, ends at Ivan Meštrović's The Well of Life. Gotovac applies his body to the cracks of The Well, among the nude bodies of the sculpture, but with the same fervour he'll nestle along the edges of façades, the surface of an urban flower planter, the vertical column of a street light, the handrail of some stairs... Both the purposeful and the coincidental actions of passers-bys become equally involved in the artistic event - a call to seize personal freedom in public space, on Zagreb's pavements.
“It is truly a lover's relationship to Zagreb. For this reason I was dressed, not to cause misunderstandings. I've been intimate with that square for decades, its very name reminds me of youth. […] The performance consisted of pushing my body into all the crevices of that dear to me square. There's the theatre, Meštrović's The Well of Life. His sculpture is manifest, the pinnacle. It is a part of my life, my first contemplation on arts. A four-year-old kid who arrived in Zagreb in 1941 could touch the well, it contained water... that felt sensational."
Tomislav Gotovac, Vijenac, 1998
In collaboration with Tomislav Gotovac Institute the members of theatre collective BADco. will perform a reconstruction of Gotovac's performance at noon of 14th of October 2017, precisely on its twentieth anniversary. We look forward to our chance encounter!
09 / 10 / 2017
PERFORMANCE
Tomislav Gotovac u izvedbi BADco. / Prilagođavanje objektima na Trgu maršala Tita – Trg maršala Tita volim te! / 14.10.2017.
On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, Tomislav Gotovac Institute and Zagreb-based collective BADco. invite you to the reconstruction:
Tomislav Gotovac, performed by BADco.
Adapting to objects on Marshal Tito Square – Marshal Tito Square I love you!
14. October 1997 / 2017 at 12:00 at Meštrović's The Well of Life
“The city is a being. The city is a degree of identifying with life itself.”
Tomislav Gotovac (Sombor, 1937 - Zagreb, 2010), performer, conceptual artist and film director, performed Adapting to objects on Marshal Tito Square – Marshal Tito Square I love you! on the 14th of October 1997 at the opening of The Week of Performance organized by Zagreb's SCCA and the independent artistic project Doma - A casa - At Home. In the thirty years since his first performance Happ our – Happening and up until 1997, Gotovac performed a series of actions transposing his intimate, artistic and fantastic relationship towards the city he lived in into its public spaces. The most renown among these performances was Lying naked on the asphalt, kissing the asphalt (Zagreb, I love you!), the performance recalled in this title.
A quotidian stroll over a pedestrian crossing, dribbling with a ball or sitting on the edge of an urban bench becomes part of a street choreography. The performance begins and, after a circular tour of the west side of the Square, ends at Ivan Meštrović's The Well of Life. Gotovac applies his body to the cracks of The Well, among the nude bodies of the sculpture, but with the same fervour he'll nestle along the edges of façades, the surface of an urban flower planter, the vertical column of a street light, the handrail of some stairs... Both the purposeful and the coincidental actions of passers-bys become equally involved in the artistic event - a call to seize personal freedom in public space, on Zagreb's pavements.
“It is truly a lover's relationship to Zagreb. For this reason I was dressed, not to cause misunderstandings. I've been intimate with that square for decades, its very name reminds me of youth. […] The performance consisted of pushing my body into all the crevices of that dear to me square. There's the theatre, Meštrović's The Well of Life. His sculpture is manifest, the pinnacle. It is a part of my life, my first contemplation on arts. A four-year-old kid who arrived in Zagreb in 1941 could touch the well, it contained water... that felt sensational."
Tomislav Gotovac, Vijenac, 1998
In collaboration with Tomislav Gotovac Institute the members of theatre collective BADco. will perform a reconstruction of Gotovac's performance at noon of 14th of October 2017, precisely on its twentieth anniversary. We look forward to our chance encounter!