Saturday, 30 May 2026 at 12 pm
BOOK TALK AND EXHIBITION CLOSING
With: Boris Buden, Ana Dević, Marko Golub
Moderator: Đurđica Ćilić
On Statehood Day, Saturday 30 May from 12 pm at the KIC, there will be a finissage of the exhibition Design, Socialism, Modernism and the promotion of Dejan Kršić's book The Vain Builder and the Blind Spot of Ideology: On the Occasion of Bogdan Bogdanović's Partisan Necropolises, published by the White Wave Association.
At the heart of the exhibition and the book lies the same interest in the political significance of the relationship between socialist modernism and socialist aestheticism. It is precisely the work of Bogdan Bogdanović that embodies this split between socialist modernism and socialist aestheticism, and through it the social and political changes of Yugoslav society can be observed and interpreted, from modernist universalism, through the identity turn of the late 1960s, to the construction of nationalist politics in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s.
The title of the book is, of course, a reference to Bogdanović's book The Cursed Labourer, as well as to the fact that fans of his work often called him that. However, as the subtitle suggests, Bogdanović's artwork is, above all, a pretext, or rather a starting point, for broader, yet interconnected, reflections on the fate of monuments and the erasure of the traditions of the NOB, the culturalisation of anti-fascism, and contemporary revisionism, questions of attitudes towards the Holocaust and genocide, but also the blind spots and inconsistencies of his lauded anti-Milošević political engagement during the 1980s and 1990s.
In that respect, Kršić's book is a polemic not only against revisionists and nationalist cultural policies, but also a critique of the blind spots of left-wing art history; a critique of the nationalism of Croatian liberals, as well as a critique of the culturalisation of the political spearheaded by the stalwarts of the so-called Second Serbia, from Latinka Perović to Bogdanović. If what the domestic academic, university and intellectual scene engages in is science, then this is definitely not a scientific book, but a hammer. Therefore, according to Brecht's second directive, written at the time of the rise of historical fascism: 'Hungrier, reach for the book: it is a weapon!'
(the event is held in Croatian)
Boris Buden, philosopher, publicist and cultural critic. Translator of Freud into Croatian. In the 1990s, he was a columnist and editor at Arkzin and the publisher of the Biblioteka Bastard publishing project. Texts from that period were published in the key essay collection entitled ‘Barikade’. He writes essays and articles on philosophy, politics, cultural and art criticism, with a particular interest in the issues of the so-called post-communist transition, attitudes towards the past, nationalism, and translation theory. He is also media-active as a commentator on current political and cultural events.
Ana Dević, art critic and curator. She has collaborated with many cultural journals and written numerous texts for exhibition catalogues. She is a PhD candidate in art history at the University of Zadar, researching partisan artistic production and the anti-fascist resistance during the Second World War. One of the founders of the independent curatorial collective What, How and for Whom/WHW, whose activities explore the potentials of critical curatorial practice. Since 2018, WHW has run the international study programme for young artists, WHW Academy.
Marko Golub is an art critic, design historian and curator. Director of the Gallery of the Croatian Design Society and editor-in-chief of the website design.hr. He is also the editor and co-author of a number of books and publications published by the HDD (Fragments of Design History, monographic publications on Sanja Iveković, Dalibor Martinis, Mirko Ilić, Zoran Pavlović, etc.) and curator of numerous exhibitions (Eccentricity, Design from the Margins, Mirko Ilić: “Time After Time”, Words, Images and Dreams – Posters from the Collection of Petar Smiljanić …).
Đurđica Ćilić, professor at the Department of Polish Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts. She teaches courses in Polish literature, translation and literary theory. She writes academic and scientific papers on Polish literature and translates from Polish, mainly contemporary poetry. She is the author of acclaimed prose books Fafarikul, Novi kraj and the recent Vidimo se na papiru, in which, through stories and recollections of so-called ordinary life and family events, she addresses a number of socially important themes: war and nationalism, intergenerational relationships, solidarity and love.
Dejan Kršić, a graphic designer and publicist. He is a full professor at the Department of Visual Communication Design at the Academy of Arts in Split. He primarily works in graphic design for projects in the cultural sector and on the independent cultural/activist scene. In the 1990s, he was one of the founders, art director and later editor-in-chief of the magazines Arkzin and Biblioteka Bastard. Since 2000, he has been a member of the visual culture association What, How and for Whom/WHW. He is the author and co-author of numerous texts and books on the history of graphic design.