IGOR GRUBIĆ: Gestures of Activation – Works in Public Space

Public engagement is one of the fundamental stimuli of Grubić’s work, as underlined in the title of his first retrospective solo exhibition in Rijeka. He is preoccupied with the subject of social turmoil in the nineties, paying special attention to the processes of transition and privatisation, the burden of wartime destruction and responsibility of individuals in active social changemaking. His critically directed considerations are thus closely related to empowering civil disobedience, the implementation of different activist strategies of agitation and infiltration into the public space. Penetrating the soft tissue of pacifist yet unnerving critique, Grubić represents a peculiar example of artistic activism relying on the spirit of guerrilla-anarchist actions, in the wake of the legacies of historical avant-gardes and conceptual practices from the sixties and seventies, which stepped out into the streets to express institutional critique and desire for direct communication with the public.