Breda Beban, Arte Vivo (Courtesy of the curator)“Although there is something classical in the composition that in Breda’s figures of kisses develops from tongues and heads positions suggesting a spiral movement that will eventually propel the lovers in the sky, not unlike the baroque representations of ascension, the kiss in her Arte Vivo assumes the form of political viewpoint and not only about the social reality at that, but about the universal order as well.“(Branko Franceschi: The Adventure of Emotions). The exhibition is moved from the Italian “Trieste Contemporanea” Studio Tommaseo to  NO gallery of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia/MSU (20th June, 2013 – 3rd July 2013)

Culture wise, the implications are numerous: from philosophical, as in Plato’s Symposium, to those strictly artistic in masterpieces of modernism as in works by Rodin, Munch, Brancusi, Picasso, Warhol and others. Obviously, the realisation of civilisation of democracy and liberal sexuality highlighted the intimacy of kiss as a theme of mainstream art, but it is not accidental that it was Vivo Dito of a female artist to point at the universal and quintessentially emancipating nature of its public display.

Breda Beban was an artist, filmmaker and curator/creative producer whose work deals with contemporary notions of subjectivity and emotion that occur on the margins of big stories about geography, politics and love. Breda Beban’s films and photographs are recognized as unique expressions of intimacy, vulnerability and authenticity.

Breda Beban died in London in 2012 fighting to the bitter end for the intensity of  life that she was promoting by her art. The fate coupled these two activists (Beban/Alberto Greco) in the great narration about meaning and role of art that marked the culture of the 20th century. Their voices added passion to this central theme that could be generated only from the so called ‘cultural margins’ they themselves stemmed from and without which the ‘centre’, as Croatian art historian Želimir Košcevic once said, wouldn’t be anything else but a ‘black hole’.

MV