Josip Vaništa as a “False Rimbaud”

Abstract

The author confirms Zagreb’s proto-conceptual art group Gorgona as an anti-aesthetic and anti-painting association, which sought to initiate a revision of the existing art, desacralize artistic creation, and secularize the artwork and its message. Gorgona ventured into the domain of mental freedom with the aim of demystifying the very language of art. In the group’s manuscripts, the reality of the work of art comes forth charged and impressive as something independent and self-sufficient, free from the traditional, canonized, prescribed, and academicized customs of representative painting. Through a critical re-examination of the function of art and artistic language, Gorgona came to the insight that the convention of painting was inappropriate to the ethics of art. Painting – now perceived as an outdated and worn-out instrument of artistic expression – was to be minimized and in fact – conceptually – removed from the artistic context, although the group members engaged in painting outside of Gorgona’s activities. Gorgona affirmed the behavioural and verbal position of the artist and claimed that the medium of “pure” painting could only be spoken of in the context of its negation. This paper focuses particularly on the anti-painting works of Josip Vaništa, in which he transcended and superseded the idea of a painting by turning it into a text.