MAXARTFEST 2008.

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MAX ART FEST 2009, MANIFEST OF OBLIVION

Around 5000 visitors have visited the first MaxArtFest2008 in three days and nights.
Thirty authors of all generations have presented their latest work in various techniques,
commenting on the subject "Revolution on hold".
We have transformed the underground public garage Kvatrić
into one of the most interesting exhibition locations in Zagreb,
but we have also exhibited and worked in the underground rooms,
the abandoned rooms of the local community,
on the square, in front of the stadium and even in one tramcar.

Our new gathering is scheduled for October 2009,
at the place of our art ritual,
in the underground space of the Kvatrić garage.
MaxArtFest is a platform of live art; it isn't by any means
a domain of neither a retrospective nor representations.
We see our working space as an amplifier of our own actions, as an artist's sanctuary.

Therefore MaxArtFest 2009 insists on artwork developing
as dynamic projects and artistic comments or provocations.
In any technique whatsoever.
This year we are opening ourselves towards young artists and students.
You are invited to conceive and show your projects
in cooperation with our artistic development section.

TWO BEGINNINGS: MANIFEST OF OBLIVION

We are dynamically marked by two beginnings, two centuries.

In the beginning of the 20th century,
which we still consider as our own,
the artists have articulated a new energy,
dynamism, multitudinousness.
The manifests were the main source of appearances,
the resolute programmes which have set the directions for artistic work.
The directness of art movements has often spread onto ideologies and wars as well.
The manifests have slowly become a part of history of art,
memories of an age of resolution.

The beginning of the 21st century in which we live for almost 10 years now,
is not providing us with a new uplift,
but is in a certain sense concluding our fast ride
which we have lived so far.
The energy of withdrawal and silence about all failures,
the search for new beginnings, inside ourselves.
The art isn't starting nor blending with the mass movements any more.
All of the roles have been taken by those whose eyes are shut.
How to keep going through a memory network,
dead dreams, abandoned hopes,
buried young men, silenced ideologies...

We live simultaneously in both centuries, in both energies.

In the driving energy and the energy of withdrawal. MANIFEST OF OBLIVION.

Leo Katunarić, artistic director

MaxArtFest, Zagreb 2009
Contact us at: maxartfest@gmail.com