Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Dalibor Martinis
Croatian, Yugoslav; 20th-century
Zagreb, Croatia: Muzej Suvremene Umjetnosti
80%
Dalibor Martinis Razgovara s Daliborom Martinisom (Dalibor Martinis Talks to Dalibor Martinis). 1978/2010. Video
Martinis recorded himself in 1978 interviewing a future version of himself, and then in 2010 he filmed himself submitting to that interview. It's a slightly hack conceptualist concept, not far off from stuff in the oeuvres of, say, Nauman or Leeson. But it fucking works. The piece is almost like a bildungsroman for the genre of conceptualism itself: young Martinis is callow and high-minded, old Martinis deflated and wry. The video stages the deflationary import of conceptual practices, from vanguard techniques to the water we grudgingly swim in. There are things beyond the pure conceit that enhance the piece's effect: the appearance that the older Martinis is reading from a script; the weird TV newsroom mise en scène. Plus, the historical context is a boon. In America conceptualism from its inception on can rightly be critiqued for its lack of any historical sensibility. This piece, on the other hand, was literally created on each side of socialism. Old Martinis's distanced reaction to his younger self isn't just the natural wincing we do when we're confronted with whatever we used to do and believe; it's world historical. (TFS, 2025)