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The Gulf War was the first conflict for a long time where the Dutch army invited an artist to accompany the troops which were deployed on the southern border of Turkey. He recorded his observations in drawings and paintings. In a way that cannot be exactly defined, these described the miserable conditions of the Kurdish population more accurately than the usual photo reports. Perhaps we are so blunted by the endless series of press photos of heartrending situations that photos have lost their effect. The interposition of an artistic treatment of the degrading events suddenly provides a new and more direct power of expression for the jaded public. In the same way, Gržinić and Ŝměd attempted to document the emotional experience of the ten days war of Slovenia against the federal Yugoslavian troops in June/July 1991. They selected some fragments from documentary footage about the conflict, other material which exemplified the political situation and linked these to a personal point of view on the position of Slovenian culture in these confusing times. Their aim was to perform an extremely contemporary research into the position of art against a political background in which the lives of the artist and the art-lover are threatened in a very concrete way. Reasoned the other way round, they wonder if the political chaos was also charted by the discussions which, despite everything, continued in cafes, galleries and specialised periodicals. They literally put both of these approaches in the picture. We see a man with a framed work of art under his arm. The space within the frame is used as exhibition space for the above project.
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Erik Daams
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Camera: Vlado Draškovič,
Light: Rok Mikše,
Editing: Milan Miloševič,
With: Burot Veselko, Judita Zidar, Borut Mauhler,
Production: Marina Gržinić, Aina Šmìd, TV Slovenija /Studio Ljubljana
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