From 27th April — 16th June, 2012  Aanant & Zoo present the first solo exhibition of Croatian artist Vlado Martek (1951) in Germany. The base of Martek’s artistic praxis consists of writing, poetry and language. Since the 1970s Martek has used the different mediums of sketch, collage, happening and books to negate and deconstruct the traditional forms of speech and thus finally returning it to its essence and finding new and different manners of dealing with language. Martek is not a quiet observer. In his works he reacts analytical, critical, ironic and humorous on social structures and constructs, as is evident in the here displayed manifesto Snaga podloge.

Martek, who in the early 1970s studied philosophy and literature in Zagreb, began his artistic career as a poet. Soon he found himself disenchanted with writing as a method of expression. Between 1975 and 1978, Martek presented his poems and other writings to the public on the street as a member of political art collective Group of Six Artists (with Boris Demur, Željko Jerman, Mladen Stilinović, Sven Stilinović , Fedor Vučemilović). The artist manipulates the nature of his material. For example when glass, paper, mirror and a blank surface reveal a “Sonett” (1978/2009) while conserving the poems its inherent rhythm and sound despite the material change. He works as a librarian since 1979.

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