Author: ARTMargins

“An act of impudence marks the beginning.”With reference to the publication accompanying the project and reviewed in the current issue of ARTMargins: “Mind the Map! – History Is Not Given. A Critical Anthology Based on the Symposium,” eds. Marina Gržinic, Günther Heeg, and Veronika Darian (Revolver, 2006). See especially one of the prefaces, from which this sentence is borrowed, l.c. p. 23. That’s how it started, some years ago in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In 2000 the Slovenian painters’ collective Irwin, ie, part of the artists’ collective NSK: Neue Slowenische Kunst (New Slovenian Art) since 1983, initiated a project that would … Read more

Christo and Jeanne-Claude are probably the most elusive artistic couple in the contemporary art world. Their vast ephemeral projects across Europe and the US, each one existing for no more than several weeks and involving approximately ten years and hundreds of people to realize, claim to possess political and economical autonomy. In order to raise the millions of dollars required for a project to be completed, Christo produces a huge amount of preparatory drawings, collages, and maquettes, while Jeanne-Claude, who plays the role of a manager, PR, and an image maker of the artistic union, deals with them on the … Read more

Researching Communist architecture is a tricky endeavor in contemporary Romania, where some major actors of that era are still alive, some even still in charge, and are not exactly interested in opening up archives for investigation and interpretation.

This and many other reasons explain perhaps why there is almost no research in the history of the present or future state of the built public realm (spaces, edifices, monuments and memorials, collective dwelling). Taught in a post-Beaux Arts and then post-Bauhaus school of architecture, where information was scarce and delayed, where drawing skills were the exclusive requirement for admission, and architectural … Read more

In recent Croatian contemporary art, several art projects that deal with human interference in the natural environment require critical tools that go beyond pleasure-based aesthetics and exceed the prism of national identity and the drama of transition. The works discussed here are engaged with specific localities and global forces rather than the frame provided by the nation state. The intensive interest in the interconnectedness of the social and natural environment shown by Dalibor Martinis, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, and Antun Maracic is arguably linked to the deepening engagement of contemporary art with sustainability.

Sustainability, in its definition, contains the dilemma of … Read more

During the glasnost period when many forgotten biographies were rediscovered and rewritten, one of the most bizarre finds was the Soviet-American inventor and pioneer of electr(on)ic music, Lev Sergeevich Termen (aka Léon Theremin, 1896-1993). Termen, “the secret link between sci-fi films, the Beach Boys, and Carnegie Hall,” whose “electronic musical instrument took the world by storm in the 1920s and ’30s”(Grand Performances. “Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey”. Grandperformances.org, http://www.grandperformances.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/season_schedule.show_detail/s_id/89.) — several decades before the rise of electronic popular music — had been forgotten for 50 years in the East and West.

Some remembered this name, though–among them were Robert … Read more

In 2003, Vladimir Paperny was asked by the popular Moscow magazine “Afisha” (Billboard) to review contemporary architecture of Moscow. ARTMargins publishes Paperny’s conversations and street impressions.

March 26, 6:30 PM, “Afisha” Magazine

– Can you please write about the new architecture of Moscow, – asked the chief editor.

– I don’t know anything about it, you should ask Grigorii Revzin.

– He’s a professional, and we need a side perspective.

– A freewheeling essay?

– No, no, no—essays! We need the meat.

– Where am I going to get your meat? If only Revzin would agree to guide me … Read more