COURAGE

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The performances presented on Republic Square (today's Ban Jelačić Square) in Zagreb in 1971 are the first work from the "Casual Passer-by" cycle. Another performance was done separately on Marshal Tito Square (today's Republic of Croatia Square) on the same day, when a large poster (portrait) of a random passer-by was mounted. Three large posters (portraits) showing photographs of an older man, an older woman and a young girl were hung on Republic Square. The posters (portraits) aroused great interest and confusion among the passers-by waiting for a tram.

It was a subversive performance in a public area, otherwise intended for officials, where the artist hung portraits of random passers-by and in that way questioned the established forms of communication in the public space of a socialist state.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb owns five photographs on one background that testify to this event - called the "Casual passers-by I met at 1:15, 4:23, 6:11 p.m.".

This typewritten conversation originally would have been published in Pál Diósi’s book about prostitution, This is not a Joyride (1990). Pál Diósi, who originally recorded his conversations on tape and paid for their transcription himself, talked with a man of Jewish origins who received sexual services from a prostitute several times. The editor of Gondolat [Thought] Publishing House believed that if the fact that a Jewish person had paid for sex had been revealed, it would have compromised the Jewry of Budapest, so the interview remained in manuscript form.

The Gino-Hahnemann Archive at the Academy of Arts also contains several films. They document simple events and occurrences, but were meticulously prepared and often reflect deep cultural-historical examinations of Kafka, Hölderlin or Michelangelo.

As a dramatist and director, Hahnemann created exposés with shooting schedules, gave recommendations regarding camera settings and documented these with still motions, even noting the materials used as well as their costs. The Hahnemann archive at the Academy of Arts contains thirteen such film documentations (spanning 1981-1986). They underline the laborious production of alternative, non-state sanctioned art in the GDR.

The document presents an excerpt of the important points expressed at the meeting of Prosvjeta’s Executive Comittee, held in Zagreb in March 1971. It documents the aspirations of Prosvjeta’s leadership , which exceeded accepted boundaries and whereby the authorities deemed them oppositional. The debate clearly reflected dissatisfaction with Prosvjeta’s status in society and the evident tendency toward a broader Serbian influence. The demands detailed in the document include a constitutional guarantee of equal treatment of Serbs and Croats, the convening of a Congress of Serbs in Croatia, more state funding, equal status of languages and scripts, the renaming of the periodical Prosvjeta to Srpska riječ, the establishment of the Museum of Serbs in Croatia and other Serbian institutions as well. But not all participants were of the same opinion, so various disagreement were recorded in the document, especially when it came to Prosvjeta’s political engagement.