Roger Loewig was an autodidact painter, illustrator, and writer based in Berlin, East and West. Born in Silesia, he spent his youth in occupied Poland until 1945, when he fled to Eastern Germany (first in the Soviet-occupied territory, later GDR). Here he took on vocational training as a teacher for Russian, a profession which he exercised starting 1953. In addition to his teaching position in Russian, German and history, until the beginning of the 1960s, he actively engaged in his creative activities in East Berlin, where he was based. The application to officially join the Union of Artists in 1962, which would grant him the status as a freelance artist in the GDR, was initially denied.
Following the first private exhibition organised in 1963, inspired by the recent political events such as the construction of the Berlin Wall, the artist came under Stasi surveillance. This eventually led to his imprisonment potentially for ten years being accused of 'treacherous propaganda’. The accusation brought against him was motivated by the themes addressed by his artworks, namely to have taken a stand against the Berlin Wall and state organised violence. Loewig was ransomed with the support of the Protestant Church from West Germany after one year, yet remained in the GDR first.
After his release in 1964, the artist fully emerged in his creative activities, however, left Berlin East often for the countryside. He was also prohibited to exercise his teaching activities. It was only in 1965 that Loewig was officially granted the artist status by joining the Union of Artists. Despite that, his first exhibition after the release was organised at the 'Ateliergemeinschaft Erfurt’. This was an exhibition space since 1963 which actively facilitated the collaboration between painters and graphic artists who denied socialist realism as an artistic form of expression. The exhibitions of the atelier have been extensively organised underground in private apartments, banned from the public eye.
Starting the mid-1960s his activity was strongly supported by the close group of friends established in Bonn (1966), who throughout the regime facilitated contacts, private purchases of his artworks and exhibitions in Western Germany and internationally.
Beginning of the 1970s, Loewig's 'exile’ to Berlin West was eventually granted. Based in Berlin West starting 1972, he carried on with his artistic activity, joining the 'Malerpoeten' [Painter Poets] group of artists. The artist, also a poet, published his first prose and literature volumes in Western Germany during the 1980s. Furthermore, the artist explored international opportunities to exhibit the artworks in Europe, both East and West, and in the United States.
Following the fall of the Berlin wall and the German reunification in 1990, Loewig remained skeptical towards political developments. Consequently, he took on numerous travels in Central and Eastern European countries. In 1992 the artist exhibited his lithographs under the name 'Epitafia’ in the State Museum in Auschwitz-Birkenau, being the first German artist to exhibit his artworks in the former concentration camp.
The artist was awarded in October 1997 for his lifetime achievements the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, first category. Roger Loewig died shortly afterward on November fourth in Berlin.
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Adresa:
- Berlin, Germany
Mladen Lompar was a Montenegrin poet, essayist, and art critic. He graduated from Art History at the University of Belgrade. From 1984 to 1995 he was the director of the Art Museum of Montenegro in Cetinje. He was removed from his position after refusing to allow the museum to carry paintings stolen from the Croatian battlefield.
Lompar was commissioner of the Second and Third Cetinje Biennale and Vice President of the Doclean Academy of Sciences and Arts, a parable scholars’ academy created in 1998 by academics who found the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts to be dominated by Serbian nationalism. Lompar was one of the founders of the Montenegrin Society of Independent Writers and the president of the Montenegrin PEN Centre.
The poetry of Mladen Lompar has been translated into many languages and has been presented in several anthologies of contemporary Montenegrin and regional poetry.
Lompar was one of the founders of the Literary Municipality of Cetinje publishing house and creator and editor-in-chief of ARS – Review of Culture, Art and Science during both the original and later series.
As his liberal political views, advocacy for national and civil rights, and promotion of avantgarde aesthetics were provocative to both the local communist regime and mentality of the small town of Cetinje, he was labelled by authorities, alongside his colleagues Milorad Popović and Slavko Perovic, as “politically inappropriate” during the 1980s and 1990s. Lompar contributed greatly to the creation of a core of resistance movements that later went on to form the political party Liberal Alliance of Montenegro (LSCG), as well as anti-war media and alternative cultural organizations.-
Adresa:
- Kotor, Montenegro
Marko Lopušina (born 1951) is a Serbian journalist and current affairs writer. As a journalist and editor, he has worked for several newspapers and magazines (Sekundarne sirovine, Zdravo, Intervju, Profil, Nedeljni telegraf, Večernje novosti, Ilustrovana politika). He is known as the author of a number of books on the Serbian diaspora and secret services, and their role in contemporary Serbian politics. He has also systematically researched censorship practices in the former Yugoslavia and published two books on that subject: Crna knjiga - cenzura u Jugoslaviji 1945-91. [Black Book – censorship in Yugoslavia 1945-91] published in 1991, and Crna knjiga – cenzura u Srbiji 1945-2015. [Black book – censorship in Serbia 1945-2015], published in 2015.
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Adresa:
- Belgrade, Serbia
She is currently the Director of the Foreign Croatica Collection, as well as a translator and writer, and graduated in comparative literature and the Spanish language and literature, and also has a PhD in Croatian language and literature. Since 2004, she has been an employee of the National and University Library in Zagreb, and from 2007, a director of the Foreign Croatica Collection. Her role as director is to conceive and implement projects involving the Collection. That includes purchasing items, research, organising exhibitions and presenting the Collection at different events, as well as running public debates concerning the Foreign Croatica Collection.
She is also vice-president of the Croatian Writers' Association and the president of the Committee for Literary Connections at the Croatian Writers Association. She translates works from the Spanish language and is a promoter of Croatian literature throughout the world, especially in Spanish speaking countries. She has translated, written and edited about 50 books.
She spent five years in Chile where she worked as a teacher in Puntarenas and later in Croatian diplomacy. This is also the reason behind here interested in the Croatian diaspora, especially in Latin America. Despite spending five years among the Croatian diaspora, she does not consider herself a part of the diaspora and neither was she a part of the cultural opposition to the former Yugoslavia. Her reason for having a connection with the cultural opposition is attributed to her role as director of the Foreign Croatica Collection.
To her, the underlying meaning of this cultural opposition is “a cultural resistance, through literature, not pamphlets, and proof that you can do something without the need for someone’s approval – from anyone.” As a member of cultural scene, she asserts that cultural opposition is very important, primarily as a way of preventing cultural activities from ending up in oblivion.
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Adresa:
- Zagreb, Croatia
Jerzy Ludwiński (1930) was born in Zakrzówka in the Lubelszczyzna region. He was a critic and an art theoretician, a curator of numerous exhibitions, an academic teacher, and a visionary whose concept still inspires artists and researchers. His intellectual and organisational activity, especially during the time he spent in Wroclaw in 1966-1975, greatly influenced the development of the Polish conceptualism and neo-avant-garde. Ludwiński died in Toruń in 2000, where he had lived since 1975.
In 1955 Ludwiński graduated from art history at the Catholic University of Lublin. Two years later he was one of the founders of the Lublin’s group Zamek; he also became an editor of the “Structures” (an addition to the “Kamena” magazine), at the same time cooperating with other press issues and actively participating in various artistic events. In 1966 he co-organised the Artists’ and Scientists’ Symposium “Art in the changing world” in the Nitrogen Plants in Puławy – with the participation of local engineers. It proved to be a breakthrough event, both for Ludwiński, who started to sketch his main ideas, and for the whole conceptualism in Poland.
The same year Ludwiński moved to Wroclaw where he presented the idea of the Current Art Museum – an institution which would analyse and document currents artistic facts; being art’s “sensitive seismograph” and its catalyser. The extension of this concept was the idea of a “game’s museum”, which was led by an artist, critic (and curator), and the audience, enabling all parties to negotiate the meanings of created works. Under Mona Lisa Gallery – as the modest gallery in the International Press and Books’ Club’s (IPBC) hall was informally named – was an attempt to materialise those ideas with the limited funding and exposition possibilities. Gallery was ran by Maria Bierny, a head of whole IPBC, but Ludwiński was its curator between 1967-1971, and thanks to his activity the institution was of an extremely authorial character. It provoked authentic, not routinized, discussion about contemporary art. Every exhibition was preceded by the dialogue of an artist and a curator, published in the “Odra” magazine, and finished with a public debate. One of the most important exhibitions in the Under Mona Lisa Gallery was the Terminology art in 1970 – an exposition in a form of text and documentation from the outdoor workshop in Osieki from the same year. It was in Osieki where Ludwiński presented his famous paper Post-artistic art (published later under a slightly changed name Art in a post-artistic epoch), which described the following phases of art evolution; both those form the past (from an object to space) and those that were yet to come. The ending point was specified as dispersion, and merging of the art and reality. Ludwiński predicted that the eagerness to dematerialise art, to exchange a work of art with the “creative process” and action, will lead to a gradual penetration of art in into the spheres of everyday life, science, and technology.
Also in 1970, in Wroclaw, one of the most important events of the Polish conceptualism took place: the Wroclaw ’70 Fine Arts Symposium, organised to commemorate the 25th anniversary of joining the Recovered and Northern Territories to Poland – but in fact it was an excuse to gather tens of the Polish conceptual and neo-avant-garde artists. Ludwiński was an important member of the Symposium Organising Committee. During the event he presented his vision of the Artistic Research Centre (ARC), describing it as an institution both of research nature, and at the same time stimulating art development (as a substitute for ARC may be seen the Art Documentation Centre, founded in 1972 and closed just a year later). In 1971 Ludwiński also managed to organise (together with Antoni Dzieduszycki and Jan Chwałczyk) an outdoor workshop Ziemia Zgorzelecka “Art and science in the process of protecting human natural environment”. It was an expression of ecological consciousness of the conceptual artists and theoreticians. However, the same year Ludwińki resigned from running the Under Mona Lisa Gallery, which was an effect of a conflict with the IPBC’s authorities.
After moving to Torun in 1975 Ludwiński started to run a gallery Punkt (in 1976-1978). He still took part in the artistic life, visiting various exhibitions, symposiums, and outdoor workshops. It is worth mentioning i.e. the International Meetings of Artists, Scientists, and Art Theoreticians in Osieki or the biennale Golden Bunch in Zielona Gora. Since 1982 he tought in the State Higher School for Fine Arts in Poznan, and for the rest of his life he concentrated on the didactics. He was a member of the Polish section of the International Association of Art Critics AICA and a persistent promoter of art in the press, radio, and television.
Ludwiński strongly contributed to shifting the attention from an artistic object to the „artistic process”; he sought a dialogue of the artists, critics, curators, and audience, aiming to democratise and decentralise the art world. He opposed the exclusiveness of art and the pomp that accompanies it; he provoked confrontations and polemic. Ludwiński has never written a whole book (there are only articles, notes, diagrams, and papers), as he was rather a man of a spoken word, of discussion and dialogue. However, his influence on the changes in art of the 1960s and the 1970s is invaluable. His somewhat hippie lifestyle and staying in the peripheries of the art field (little, independent galleries, reviving the creative circles in Lublin, Wroclaw, Torun), definitely made him a person standing out from mainstream. His importance is not even diminished by the fact that he cooperated with the security services, what he explained with the desire to explain them the complex processes within art evolution. In the article Performative mythology. About Jerzy Ludwiński’s curatorial strategies Piotr Lisowski underlined Ludwiński’s thought radicalism and his prophetic attitude: “His work practice has always been characterised by ephemerality and a specific kind of nomadism. It was largely determined by the critic’s biography and myth: a vagabond in jeans, hitchhiking from a symposium to symposium, from a reading to a reading, who found important talking about art”. Play, processual thinking, dialoguing, blurring borders, nomadism, and a visionary attitude made Ludwiński an unusual figure, standing out from easy labelling and interpretation schemes.
Sources:
Dzikie pola. Historia awangardowego Wrocławia, Dorota Monkiewcz (ed.), Zachęta – Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław, Warsaw 2015.
Jerzy Ludwiński. Wypełniając puste pola, Piotr Lisowski, Katarzyna Radomska (ed.), Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Znaki Czasu, Toruń 2011.