Tomislav Gotovac a.k.a. Antonio G. Lauer: Ascending Descending Genealogy

The artistic oeuvre of the multimedia artist Tomislav Gotovac (1937–2010) has been controversial throughout his lifetime. However, today his work is highly appreciated in artistic circles worldwide and his works are held in the most prestigious international collections. Furthermore, Gotovac was and remains a part of Zagreb's urban and popular iconography, favoured by the wide public due to his provocative art interventions and performances.

The exhibition at the Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art is based on the concept designed by the French curator Pierre Bal-Blanc. The two levels of the exhibition space accommodate five conceptual parts interconnected by a sequence of associations. In the interpretation of Pierre Bal-Blanc, the work of Tomislav Gotovac is presented by a sequence of photographs, movie projections and accessories and costumes that were parts of his performances. The whole of his work therefore reveals why Tomislav Gotovac, known under his matronyme as Antonio G. Lauer, ended up becoming himself a quite unique and unequalled historical character.

The Zagreb exhibition is mainly based on the exhibition of Tomislav Gotovac’s works held at the National Gallery of Arts in Tirana in 2021. Exhibited works presented “The Non-Canonical Gospel According to Tomislav Gotovac also known as Antonio G. Lauer”, suggesting that the beginning of the art of performance is being transferred from the second half of the 20th century to a different historical and temporal context. The exhibition setup and the presented works emphasize Gotovac’s practice of the Cinema by Other Means, elaborated by the artist during his performances and exhibitions.

The exhibition is mostly dedicated to projections of the movies made by Tomislav Gotovac, along with other movies by a number of Croatian and international authors whom the curator brings in relation to Gotovac’s experimental oeuvre. As a part of the programme, feature film projections will be held at the Gorgona Hall. Ancestors, descendants and contemporaries of the cinematographic work of Tomislav Gotovac are all included in that part of the programme, thus offering an insight into his influence, of which he might have been aware or unaware, on new generations of filmmakers or videographers at the international scene.

Most of Gotovac’s works presented at this exhibition were borrowed from the collection of the artist’s daughter Sarah Gotovac, in cooperation with the Tomislav Gotovac Institute. In parallel, works from the Museum of Contemporary Art fundus will be exhibited as the MSU is in possession of a representative collection of the artist’s works from all the phases of his activity.

A printed publication comprising texts by Pierre Bal-Blanc, Vesna Meštrić and Darko Šimičić will accompany the exhibition.

Scored by Pierre Bal-Blanc and curated in conversation with Vesna Meštrić (Museum of Contemporary Art) and Darko Šimičić (Tomislav Gotovac Institute).

The exhibition is being held with the support of the City of Zagreb, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, Kontakt Collection Vienna, Erste Bank Croatia and the Tourist Association of the City of Zagreb.