Sanja Iveković

Sanja Iveković’s two-part retrospective exhibition, “Urgent Matters,” presents a story of undisciplined female bodies that spans more than forty years. Curated by Maria Hlavajova, the exhibition follows two chronological axes: Iveković’s work primarily from the 1970s to 1989––the year that marked the end of real Socialism in the Eastern bloc––installed, fittingly, at the Van Abbemuseum; and her post-1989 pieces, exhibited at BAK. This division also addresses the artist’s turn from the Yugoslavian “New Art Practices” of the 1970s and ’80s to work that addresses international issues. This geographic shift, however, is not accompanied by a change in subject matter: Iveković remains true to her concern with political, economic, and gendered power relations.

Early in her career, the artist focused on consumerism and identity and reflected on the politics of representation of “femininity” in the mass media. Her practice of juxtaposing images of herself with idealized imagery of women in advertisements and magazine articles resulted in several collage series, including “Double Life,” 1975, “Tragedy of a Venus,” 1975, and “Sweet Life,” 1975–76.

The link between the two exhibitions is found in a video performance titled Übung Macht den Meister (Practice Makes a Master), with the original 1982 version shown at the Van Abbemuseum, and its 2009 reenactment at BAK. In this powerful work, a woman dressed in black with a plastic bag over her head repeatedly falls down and stands up, as a bright spotlight pointing at her is turned on and off. In recent years, the artist has returned to a critical use of media images, with the 1997–2001 project Gen XX, in which advertisements featuring well-known models are manipulated to include the names of Yugoslavia’s former “national heroines.” These prints have been published in Croatian magazines as an attempt to fight post-1989 collective amnesia. It is, therefore, only fitting that Iveković’s retrospective will extend into the public realm, following the artist’s proposal to rename a street in Utrecht after the “Unknown Heroine.” Following approval by the city’s administration, this project is to be realized in the next few years.

This exhibition is also on view at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, until August 2.