Multidisciplinary project (5 posters, photography, short film)

Do Animals…? (2017) is a multimedia project based on the artist’s research on former slaughterhouses in northern Italy during his time in the RAVE East Village Artist Residency program. As a staunch supporter of animal rights and moreover as an activist, Grubic investigates the psychological effect these factories of death have on human consciousness. The work is composed of a series of five posters that feature photographs of now empty former slaughterhouses, overwritten with the artist’s questions, that appear in the city center in the form of anonymous ads. Silent and cold, but at the same time distinctly disturbing, the images are visually conceived as the path an animal takes from life to death, from light to darkness. Like a surreal call to public moral responsibility, through his work the artist introduces the general public to his examination of humankind’s conflicted feelings towards animals, taking full advantage of commercial mainstream media – urban billboards. This compelling urban intervention has already been shown in seven Italian cities (including Turin, Trieste, Udine and Matera). The ‘Do Animals…?’ project is also accompanied by a film shot inside these former slaughterhouses at night, together with interviews with former slaughterhouse employees.

multimedia project (2 photo serie, short film 17’ 30″)

Site specific/participative project was made in Kolubara (Serbia) during period 2004-2006. Project consist of 3 photo series and one film “Angels with Dirty Faces (turning point)”, 17.30 min,

Project in a poetic way present the miner’s protest in Kolubara as well as the civil protests in Belgrade that culminated in the burning of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia on 5 October 2000, led to the fall of Milosevic’s regime in Yugoslavia. The title of the work refers to the paradoxical situation in this region during the 1990’s: on one side there are hard-working and honest miners with clean hands and clear conscience who live on the verge of poverty, on the other side, dirty-handed politicians and the governing body who commit violence in their greed for power and dirty embezzlements, although they should stand as an example.

multimedia project (2 channel video 14’, 11 photographs, performance)

The 2-channel video installation East Side Story employs a specific media language to speak about a social problem of our time – the problem of violence and intolerance towards the other and different. The work juxtapose different media representations combining archival documentary footage from the violence on the streets of Zagreb and Belgrade during Gay Pride in 2001 and 2002 with live-action of a choreographed dance performance where language of movement mimics the violent actions taking place on locations where it really happened. In this way the artist achieves on one hand a dramatic effect and on the other a poetical reading of such an absurd brutality. “This was a way of suggesting the presence of a vivid, creative force very much alike the resistance movement that is trying to change the intolerant, conservative society into a better one” (I.G.)

photographic serie, 14 panels

On the occasion of Eleusis European Capital of Culture.

Curated by Katerina Gregos

The work is a tribute to the Eleusinian Workers Union, which used to be one of the biggest worker’s union in Greece. The serie is the result of a participatory action carried out by the artist during his residency in Elefsina and it traces through symbols and testimonies the personal experiences of 14 workers from different sectors of the territory united by the universal tool of gloves. The new photographic series Small Acts of Power focuses on the working-class history of Elefsina and the diverse labour force and human potential that makes up the city. During his research, the artist met workers in Elefsina’s industries and captured their stories photographically in their work environments. During these meetings with workers of different generations, both retired and active, the artist asked them to choose an object that was important to them during their productive lives. The photographs are portraits of each worker, even though they per se are actually absent. Instead, the artist focuses on their hands, with or without gloves – both archetypal symbols of manual labour. The result is a powerful statement about working-class identity.

research project and photo-performance  (selection)

Velvet Underground is an eight months project realized in Croatian main penitentiary Lepoglava. The artist has worked directly with prisoners who have volunteered to participate in this project through interviews focused on their childhood memories and wishes. What kind of games they liked to play when they were kids? Which heroes they identified themselves with? What characteristics they liked about them and why? What they imagined to become when they grow up? These are some of the questions he made to prisoners. Starting from their answers, Grubic performed personally in a sweet and tender way wearing in the prison the masks/costume of some characters or heroes from childhood fantasy. The work is composed by pictures of artist live performance combined with the real stories/memories of prisoners about their childhood. After all, the project is made by the artist tremendous and compassionate experience to try to give some benefit or comfort to people who aren’t even allowed, maybe because of the machismo climate, to show their private emotions and fragilities.

dimensions variable, mostly 60 x 90 cm

The serie of collages belongs to the interest Igor Grubic developed in the nineties for the Russian Constructivism ideology, which honestly believed that art can cultivate and feed the spirit of people. It can be considered as a seminal step of his practice, like drawings or sketches, and represents his very first critical thinking through art that will form his future poetic. The artist used the two basic colors red and black and played with shapes to create messages that become like minimalist agitprop campaign. Simple and clear ideograms accompanied by lettering, iconic images or characters, from Mayakovsky to Eisenstein, these early works reflect the ideas that art finds its way through advertising, while politics use art to convey revolutionary thoughts. With these collages he wanted to suggest, dream and create an utopian horizon after experiencing the trauma of war in Croatia in 1991-1995.