ART Habens Art Review ART Habens Art Review - Special Issue #97 | Page 80
ART Habens
Ante Kustre
who does something concrete and necessary or,
at least, fun and profitable. It seems to me that
whatever and in whatever material or medium I
work, it strives to become art or, better to say, it
is transformed into art. Only then I quit with that
work. And when I was writing film criticism, they
were incensed towards an essay or a short story
or a hybrid of that two. In the last stage of film
criticism (driven by this inclination) I called my
section in the newspaper "Reading the Movie". I
have to say I had no problems of understanding
and acceptance of readers, on the contrary. As a
film critic I was just thinking minimally about
their taste and expectations, just adding in my
text a bit of a spice that came to the their palate.
Not then and especially not later, in my
professional art stage, I never really wondered if
my work would be accepted of somebody and
whether they would be most understandable to
anyone. I did not even care about it; with my
work I want to satisfy only the actual self (in
which the critic never sleeps, only a little bit
shivering sometimes ). Even more of that, I want
satisfy one, imaginary and ideal
Reader/Spectator. It seems to me that all of my
art letters and postcards are addressed to
His/Her address. Of course I am satisfied (more
often in last time) and happy when they, by the
way, meet and others people who communicate
with them, enjoy and appreciate them. I am
inclined to explain these happy meetings of my
works with the audience just because I do not
even think about it in advance. That is why my
works come to them without redundant cargo,
that necessarily arises when it’s too much of
thinking about oneself and about others. It’s best
to think only about the work as it is created. The
love that the artist has for all people makes,
invisibly and silently, that his work is embraced
by others. Or rejected.. Art, like love, does not
impose itself. It is accepted. Or it is not
accepted…
on black paper, measuring 35 x 25 cm, in which I
have covered all the hardest and most lenient
social and political issues (most Croatian, but
also European and worldwide), all the burden
and garbage that the medias daily deliver. And
which I can not and I do not want to consume,
even reading only headlines and watching
photos. I just composed all of these collages
(using newspaper titles and photos), with a large
amount of black humor, passages of visual
poetry and conceptual folders, defending myself
from their poisonous content. The collages I have
mounted associatively-surrealistically, so that
they can be viewed and read as a film that is
listed. The line of the fabula is snaking but has a
clear beginning, a jazz crescendo and an
unexpected, poetic epilogue. When I finish, I'll be
delighted - and then look for a publisher in
Croatia for printing it. In September, I am waiting
for the solo exhibition "NEW ARTIST IN TOWN". It
will be my most complete presentation so far;
four sections ( “Nation In Transition”, “Re/think
Market”, “T. Sex" and “My Favorite Prisons"),
four media (collages, photos, video and
installations), four gallery rooms and four
heteronyms (as my discret hommage to
Fernando Pessoa ). For the 40th Split Salon I
make the performance "ADOPT THE ARTIST", in a
lazy cage in the abandoned Zoo on the top of
Marjan hill above Split. I hope that by the end of
the year I will be able to complete the recording
and editinig of the film "Citizen Kerum". And
then, when it's all over, catch the writing of the
book "SPLIT LOVE STORY", in a classic way - on a
type machine! I can drum on it, which gives me
the rhythm that carries me as I write. Sometimes
it seems to me that my entire artistic life is
nothing else and I do not work than I write: by
drawings, collages, photographs, films,
installations and performances. So I really
wanted to write on paper again! Yet he is my
second skin!
An interview by
and
First, in the coming month, I will complete the
"Adult Picture Book"; art - book of 110 collages
Summer
2015
Special Issue
23
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, curator
curator