Dalibor Martinis, one of the pioneers of media art in this part of Europe, has since the late 1960s dealt with communication in public spaces as well
as with the system of signs that facilitates this communication. In Counterfeits (1976), using cancelled tram tickets (from the preautomatic era, i.e., when a conductor would manually punch tickets), the artist
intervened in the diagrammatic map of the tram lines in Zagreb, making tiny modifications, changing the names of some of the stations. Using the collage technique, he inserted certain selected words cut out of newspaper classified advertisements into the readymades of the tram tickets, creating an only just perceptible modification. In the early video works, the analytical and tautological nature of the medium came fully to the fore. In Open Reel of 1976, concealment and masking took place behind the artist’s own image. The figure of the artist gradually disappeared, as if behind some terrorist’s mask, behind the tape winding around a fake second reel—the artist’s head—while he slowly turned the table.

Dalibor Martinis

* 1947 Zagreb / Croatia

Exhibition (selection)

2004 „Collected views from East or West“, Generali Foundation, Wien, A

2003 „Blood and Honey – Future´s in the Balkans”, Sammlung Essl, Wien, A

1999 “After the Wall: Art and Culture in Post-Communist Europe“, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, S

1999 „Aspekte / Positionen. 50 Jahre Kunst aus Mitteleuropa 1949-1999. MMKSLW. Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Palais Liechtenstein, 20er Haus, Wien, A

1997 La Biennale di Venezia, 47. Esposizione Internazionale d´Arte, Venezia, I

1994 „Europa, Europa. Das Jahrhundert der Avantgarde in Mittel- und Osteuropa“, Kunst und Ausstellungshalle der BR Deutschland, Bonn, D

1989 „Video Skulptur retrospektiv und
aktuell 1963 -1989“, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln, D

1989 Kongress Halle, Berlin, D

1987 Documenta 8, Kassel, D

1984 “New Narrative”, MOMA. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

1981 Sao Paolo Biennale, Sao Paolo, BR

1971 Biennale de Jeunes du Paris, Paris, F

selected bibliography

Dalibor Martinis. Between Surfaces, (ed.) Tihomir Milovac, Muzej suvremene umjetnosti, Zagreb 1995.

Dalibor Martinis. Observatorium, (ed.) Berislav Valušek, Muzej moderne umjetnosti, Rijeka 1997.

Dalibor Martinis. Brain-storm, (ed.) Nada Beroš, Muzej suvremene umjetnosti, Zagreb 1999.

Dalibor Martinis, I Am Addressing You Man to Man, Stations on The Way to Democracy, (ed.) Jerica Ziherl, Galerija Rigo, Novigrad, 2003

Martinis, Dalibor: Variable Risk Landscape-Annual Report, Omnimedia, Zagreb, 2005.