Gallery-Legacy of Milica Zorić & Rodoljub Čolaković, 2 Rodoljub Čolaković St.
April 25 (19 h opening) – May 12, 2014
Curators: Dietmar Unterkofler and Dragomir Ugren
Group 143 was founded on 14th March 1975 in Belgrade and represents strictly conceptually oriented art collective in former Yugoslavia. The name is derivation from that date. The initial project of Group 143 was to enable young artists, art historians and certain active participants in programmes of the Student Cultural Centre in Belgrade a common space for improvement of their artistic/theoretic competences.
Within five years of lasting, the group included Biljana Tomić (1975-1980), Miško Šuvaković (1975-1980), Neša Paripović (1978-1980), Jovan Čekić (1975-1979), Paja Stanković (1975-1980), Maja Savić (1975-1980), Mirko Diliberović (1978-1980), Vladimir Nikolić (1977-1980), Dejan Dizdar (1975-1976), Nada Seferović (1975), Bojana Burić (1975), Stipe Dumić (1975), Momčilo Rajin (1975), Ivan Marošević (1975) and Slobodan Šajin (1975).
Collaborative members of Group 143 were interested in theoretical approaches to contemporary art and culture. They rejected interpretations of art that were grounded on aesthetic speculations and ambiguities. They had critical approach to NeoDada and Fluxus of the 1960s. Their art production was epistemologically and analytically oriented. Cognisably theoretical approaches, developed in Group 143, were developed around the question on functioning of the system and history of art, on the relation of art to science, as well as on structurally predictable conditions for production, that is to say, on theoretical practices within art worlds.
Members of the group have individually and collectively used different art traditions in order to test their applicability to contemporary thinking on art – above all, “analytic direction” of constructivism, Kazimir Malevich, Bauhaus, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Art&Language, Joseph Kosuth, group OHO etc.
Artworks by this group relate to the skeleton, the basic structure of “system of art” and represent case studies and metareflections on it. Used mediums are diagram, structuralistic photography and film, performance art, a book as an artwork, as well as educative lecture performances and seminars. The goal was to reach the zero point of expression, to leave behind once and for all art and thought of Modernism and to change paradigms in art.
Therefore, if Group 143 becomes an object of critical reflection today, over 30 years after being founded, several questions arising at the time of post(post)modernism are of particular interest:
– How and in what way do art and conditions for its production change?
– What consequences these changes have upon the social relations?
– In what way is material production of art possible?
The Museum of Contemporary Art is thankful to the Museum of Yugoslav History for its technical assistance in the realisation of the exhibition.
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