ART Habens Art Review ART Habens Art Review - Special Issue #97 | Page 57

An interview by
and
, curator
curator
My study of World's literature and sociology in
Zagreb, and my specialization in Montpellier
(relations between literature and film) had
relatively minor influence on my later artistic
work. I have to say, my studies in Zagreb had
influenced my work a bit more than my
Montpellier experience, especially four film
semesters at my literature studies, where I
learned to delve deeply in movie structure and
analyse it critically, and that was particularly
needed as counterbalance to my inebriation by
movies that I’ve wildly enjoyed since my early
childhood. In 70-ties and 80-ties, I’ve used to
watch averagely 150 films per year and I kept
detailed evidence on each movie as well as
each book I read (40 books per year). I guess I
Ante Kustre
am the only Croatian who read Joyce’s
“Ulysses” and Dostoyevsky’s “Idiot” three
times. In these times, I was a “double addict”
inclined to casual “literature and film
overdoses”. Nevertheless, every addict should
face the reality shock eventually. Mine
occurred in 90-ties, when war in Ex-Yugoslavia
started and Croatia got overwhelmed by anti-
cultural and anti-intellectual mentality, from
the bottom to top of its societal pyramid. Many
books became politically inappropriate
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Special Issue