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Visual Poetry in the Open Space

Visual Poetry in the Open Space
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    • Visual Poetry in the Open Space
    • Vizuelna poezija u slobodnom prostoru
  • 1973
  • 27 b&w photographs
  • 24 × 36,1 cm
Performing direct and short-term interventions in the everyday condition, producing works only to leave them at the mercy of the elements, Slavko Matković explored modes of avoiding any kind of socialization (of the museum/gallery variety) of new art. He abandoned the traditional vehicles of textual production (pencil-paper-book) and approximated the textuality of gesture and the setup of a new visual consciousness/experience in the spirit of Arte Povera and Land Art, which tend to free art from semantic intricacies and causal relations between significance and the signified. This was underscored by an aspiration to develop a universal language (linguistic code) in which communication—being a function of its own—would become purposeless. The artist hence created a situation wherein the work functions as a sign and refrains from implying anything but its own existence. N.M.