Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Igor Grubić
Croatian; 21st-century
Zagreb, Croatia: Muzej Suvremene Umjetnosti
70%
East Side Story. 2006-2008. Two-channel video installation
This artwork is a two channel video. The left channel features archival footage that alternates between a Gay Pride parade and a Serbian nationalist demonstration, both in Zagreb; the right shows dancers performing a flowy contemporary piece in the same locations. The left video is historically interesting and at times visceral with all the violence and the hatred it puts on display, but it's not artistically substantial in its own right; the dancing in the right video is sort of corny, and there's nothing exceptional about the way the video's been shot or edited, though it's nice to see the passersby getting perplexed. Side by side, however, the two videos manage to justify each other aesthetically: it's the formlessness of uncontrolled social activity butting up against the (frankly overwrought, too expressive) formedness of art (qua dance). This is potent, but unfortunately Grubić doesn't do much to develop the idea. It's an affecting if pretty one-trick work of art. (TFS, 2025)