VEDUTA

Zagreb, 1998

Urban intervention with closed-circuit video focused the topic of religion and its current standing in public discourse in Croatia.

The contextual site-specific installation “Veduta” is one of works in the series on the topic of religion I have created in the late 1990s inspired by the ambivalent relation to religion in post-communist countries. In this case the closed-circuit video transmission connected the exhibition space to the medieval Stone Gate (Kamenita vrata) of Zagreb’s Upper Town, which houses a shrine to the Virgin Mary. For several centuries now the ancient city gate has been an important place of prayer, dedicated to Our Lady of the Stone Gate, who heals and comforts her venerators.

The camera was set up to record the Stone Gate in real time, showing great numbers of people passing through to enter the Upper Town. The locality is visited by tourists as well as people who come to pray there. The closed-circuit video installation transmitted the video image to an exhibition room in Klovićevi Dvori Gallery. The installation there included not only a video stream but also a ready-made object found at the location a day earlier and multiplied within the gallery room: a Coca-Cola bottle with a red rose in it.

The intervention was not granted permission of the church authorities and therefore the camera had to be placed approx. 30 meters from the site while the intervention lasted 5 hours, which was not my initial concept. The work was commissioned by 33rd Zagreb Salon exhibition curated by Ana Dević, Marina Viculin, and Igor Zabel.

CREDITS
The work was commissioned in the frame of the exhibition 33rd Zagreb Salon at the Klovićevi Dvori Gallery, Zagreb. Curators: Ana Dević, Marina Viculin, Igor Zabel.
Cooperation Partners: Dunaújváros City Hall, Evangelical Church Dunaújváros. Photos: Kristina Leko.

GENRE&FORMATS 
Project: urban intervention; closed circuit video installation. Artwork/s and artifacts: video and object installation.

 

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