No. 3
"Artist at work"
Artist: Martinis, Dalibor
Title: Artist at work
Duration: 00:03:35
Year: 2010
Genre: Art video / Performance
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MOREThe video presents 30-year project of reconstruction, reanimation and resemantization of the commercial neon object which used to stand on the roof of the building at the Republic Square in Zagreb - now in a new context, new location (on the roof of Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb) and independent of the function for which it was created. The object in question was at that time (the beginning of the 1960) placed as a neon sign for the Chromos paint factory and represented the first, or one of the first kinetic neon signs in Yugoslavia. For a good number of years the figure of the painter was almost the trademark of the Republic Square. Even though its purpose was to advertise, that is, to suggest the work of a house-painter painting some imagined surface using Chromos paints, the figure/sign was designed so that the act of painting intrudes into the foreground as the signified (Source: Dalibor Martinis).
Artist at work
The project (program text and a drawing) was exhibited for the first time at the Zagreb Salon exhibition 1980. In 2007 artist did a performance of hand painting in the same gesture as the neon painter, in the Nova gallery, Zagreb. The new neon object was made and placed on the roof of the new Museum of Contemporary Art in 2010.
