A series of public seminars with Zagreb students of art and art history focusing on the history of exhibition practices in Croatia was Delve’s contribution to the Curatorial Platform program, initiated by Ivana Meštrov and Mihaela Richter in 2008.

Each student was engaged in the research of a specific topic, which would then be presented and discussed within the whole group and the interested public, in some cases with the presence of invited guest-speakers. The aim of the open research was to sketch out a framework for writing the local history of exhibition as an experimenal art form and its relation to the social and political context.

Special focus was on the links between the Zagreb art scene with those in other Yugoslav centers, as well as to the connections and exchanges with the international art scenes. Two major lines were studied in parallel: on the one hand we looked at the individual projects and exhibition politics of the Zagreb Student Center and other state institutions and on the other, we mapped and analysed the self-organized exhibition activities by artists and curators.

Each session centered on one case study including Gorgona Group; Student Center Gallery Zagreb and the work of the curator Želimir Koščević; Student Cultural Center Belgrade; Entrance Hall Frankopanska 2A (the activities of Braco Dimitrijević, Nena Dimitrijević and Goran Trbuljak); Early 1970s in Gallery of Contemporary Art Zagreb (the work of curators Marijan Susovski and Dalibor Matičević, as well as the first projects in the urban space); Motovun Encounters and the early history of video art; Exhibitions-actions of the Group of Six Authors; Podroom - the Working Community of Artists; the end of the New Artistic Practice and the «return of painting»; Gallery of Extended Media (1982-1991); Artist as Curator.

Conceived and led by: Ivana Bago and Antonia Majača (Delve)
Participants: Jelena Graovac, Sanja Horvatinčić, Iva Kovač, Ana Kovačić, Petra Krolo, Ana Kutleša, Jelena Pašić, Ivana Peleh, Nina Pisk, Karla Pudar, Mihaela Richter, Marijana Rimanić, Zana Šaškin, Tanja Špoljar, Vanja Žanko.
Organized by: Curatorial Platform (Ivana Meštrov and Mihaela Richter)
Supported by: Student Center Zagreb, Galerija Miroslav Kraljević

September 2008 – June 2009
MM Centar, Zagreb; Galerija Miroslav Kraljević, Zagreb