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<p>Discover groundbreaking 20th-century feminist, conceptual, and Neo-Dada positions from the former Yugoslavia and beyond</p>
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Kathrin Heinrich

The Eastern European vanguard is out in force at Art Basel

<p>As the Western narrative of art history is reassessed and becomes more inclusive, influential figures of the avant-gardes in Eastern Europe are being rediscovered or gaining international recognition for the first time. While heretofore little-known or overlooked, many of these artists are now not only considered defining figures of 20th-century Eastern European movements, but also significant actors within the international art scene and its networks. </p>
<p>One such artist is <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/21651/Katalin-Ladik" target="_blank">Katalin Ladik</a> (b. 1942), who, at 80 years old, is having a moment. Her voice echoes through the halls of Haus der Kunst in Munich, where the Novi Sad-born, Budapest-based artist’s trailblazing oeuvre is currently the subject of a retrospective (until September 10, 2023). Relying primarily on her voice, Ladik’s works need to be not only seen, but heard, to be fully appreciated. Take her two-part work <em>Duet</em> (1979): one part is a collage on paper in which fragments of a musical score and sewing patterns are combined to create an infinity sign on a bright peach background; the second part is an audio recording of Ladik singing as she interprets the collage as if following musical notation. Bids to transliterate her onomatopoeia inevitably turn into something of visual poetry themselves: ‘oooaaaaoooahhoaah,’ ‘kkrrrkrr,’ and ‘waahwahoooaaahhwooaah’ might be the best way to describe some of her intonations – akin to a sewing machine’s <em>staccato</em> interjecting into a melodic folk song. </p>

<p>By using her own body and voice as tools to highlight the societal expectations and beauty standards that women face in a patriarchal system, Ladik became a central figure of the Yugoslav avant-garde. At Art Basel this summer, Budapest <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/4101/acb" target="_blank">acb Gallery</a>&nbsp;is showing a selection of Ladik’s early collages like <em>Duet</em>, alongside music scores, photo performances, and body art from the late 1960s and 1970s. The presentation aims to illustrate the multimedia and multicultural characteristics of Ladik’s work as well as, importantly, her visual approach to poetry.</p>
<p>Although <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/23386/Octav-Grigorescu" target="_blank">Octav Grigorescu</a> (1933-87) wrote throughout his life, the Romanian painter and engraver didn’t publish any of his writing during his lifetime. (A single volume of poems was edited posthumously by his younger brother, the conceptual artist Ion Grigorescu.) Instead, he channeled his intellectual nature into book illustration, informed by his love of literature, particularly that of Rilke. He may have passed away at the early age of 53, but his illustrations and paintings earned him a reputation as a central figure of 20th-century Romanian art: he represented his country at the Venice Biennale in both 1968 and 1980.<br></p>
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<p>After visiting for the Biennale in 1968, Grigorescu became enchanted with Italy. He spent a large part of his life there, working on prints and paintings in dreamy pastels and earthy ochres. He drew inspiration from the archaeological, the mythological, as well as the art historical, including the work of Leonardo da Vinci, which he studied in Rome. Grigorescu’s ink drawing <em>Animal nocturn</em> [Nocturnal Animal] (1966), for instance, renders an airy, dreamlike scene in needlepoint precision. Come June, <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1426/Galeria-Plan-B" target="_blank">Galeria Plan B</a> (Cluj, Berlin) will set this delicate work against contemporary pieces by younger Romanian artists including <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/15670/Adrian-Ghenie" target="_blank">Adrian Ghenie</a> and <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/23406/Iulia-Nistor" target="_blank">Iulia Nistor</a>, highlighting Grigorescu’s lasting impact.</p>

<p>Artist <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artwork/38353/Julije-Knifer-43" target="_blank">Julije Knifer</a> (1924-2004) wrote daily in his diary – one of the many forms of repetition that featured heavily in his practice. Hailed as one of the most important Croatian painters of the 20th century, Knifer shaped the local scene in Zagreb as a founder of the Gorgona artists group, a 1960s avant-garde collective who used Neo-Dada tendencies to oppose any kind of dogmatism, whether towards abstraction or figuration. In the face of the political demands placed on artists to work in a socialist realist style, Gorgona members believed in the absolute autonomy of art and the power of international exchange. </p>

<p>Numerous international exhibitions towards the end of Knifer’s life, including 2001 shows at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Venice Biennale, and the National Gallery in Prague, recognized a rigorous body of work that turned a single motif – the meander – into his life’s work. A decorative geometric ornament made from one continuous line, the meander has been a symbol of eternity and the eternally self-renewing energy of the universe since antiquity. From around 1960 onward, Knifer painted this motif exclusively, rendering it in various sizes but always in black and white. He even began writing texts in the shape of a meander in his diaries. This serial monotony allowed Knifer to feel liberated from the need to ‘artistically develop’ and instead focus on the act of painting itself. <em>Untitled</em> (1961), to be presented by <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1109/galerie-frank-elbaz" target="_blank">galerie frank elbaz</a> (Paris), is emblematic of the existentialist moments inherent to Knifer’s process-based paintings.</p>
<p>Unlike many of her Eastern European peers, Odessa-born, St Petersburg-raised artist <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/17059/Sonia-Delaunay" target="_blank">Sonia Delaunay</a> (1885-1979) found international fame early on in her lifetime; yet in recent decades, her legacy has been overshadowed by that of her husband Robert, a painter. Today, Delaunay’s interdisciplinary practice is receiving the critical reexamination it deserves, with exhibitions including a solo show at Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in 2022. Such shows make clear that Delaunay was not only an essential figure of the rising abstract art movement in Modernist, prewar Paris, where she moved aged 20, but that she was also astonishingly entrepreneurial. Together with her husband, Delaunay invented the concepts of Simultanism and Orphism, which formulate principles of compositional harmony. She also founded three fashion houses that sold textiles and clothing that she designed herself. </p>

<p>A century on, Delaunay’s textile works still haven’t completely shaken the stigma often associated with ‘arts and crafts.’ Yet, as time passes and research about her life continues, she is increasingly seen as the interdisciplinary artist she was – an artist who rejected the hierarchy between applied and visual arts. In a presentation by <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2064/Galerie-Zlotowski" target="_blank">Galerie Zlotowski</a> (Paris), works on paper such as the soft, geometric watercolor <em>Trois Femmes</em>
(1925) and <em>Projet de robe </em>(1923) will vividly underscore how she seamlessly melded painting and fashion design.</p>

<p>Kathrin Heinrich is an art historian and critic based in Vienna.</p>
<p>Published on May 3, 2023.<br></p>
<p>Captions for full-bleed images: 1.&nbsp;Detail of <em>Androgin</em>, 1978 by&nbsp;Katalin Ladik. Photo: Gábor Ifjú.&nbsp;Courtesy of the artist and acb Gallery. A dark filter was applied over the image for readability.&nbsp;2. Detail of&nbsp;<em>Groupe de femmes</em>,1925, by Sonia Delaunay. Copyright : Pracusa 20210319. Courtesy Galerie Zlotowski.</p>

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