Boris Demur

For Demur, it was important to dematerialize art, thereby focusing on linguistic and textual components. He concentrated mostly on one-word phrases, writing the word "Fact" on the drainpipe of a house, or wrapping a post with paper on which he wrote the word "There!" In one of the group’s actions at the University in Zagreb in 1977, he wrote “Process” on multiple sheets of paper and created a large floor piece that invited viewers to step on and thereby participate in as well as activate the work. The notion of repetition can be seen in several works created by Demur during that decade. His observations on the philosophical dimensions of artistic creation were explicitly and consistently formulated in black felt-tip pen on white paper. These textual articulations and meta-artistic comments would read something like the following: “All suppositions of creating an allusion or symbol using an idea or materials have been eliminated by this work, the work can be finished at any moment…”¹ This formulation from an exhibition-action at the Gavella Drama Theater in 1977 was taken one step further in the work “Sculpture of White Dust,” which he produced for the 1980 Biennial of the Young in Paris. Moments of thought superseding materiality as well as reflections on pristine forms of visuality were expressed in this textual piece about sculpture, which was written with white chalk on a white wall. Though Demur ended up concentrating mainly on spiral forms within painting after 1983, he would still always contemplate textual processes in conjunction with his work. W.S.