Smash The Myth

1997-2018, ongoing

public interventions 

Whatever could be the chosen medium or the modality of intervention up to including the personal style of life, Igor Grubic consistently applies a political vision to his way of living and therefore to make art. Smash the Myth is in some way a tautology with which Grubic declares, paraphrasing the radical ideology of the Russian poet of the revolution Vladimir Mayakovsky, that the NON-POLITICAL art does not exist because any artistic expression, or even a simple thought, can only be a political gesture and must reflect the responsibility that artist has toward society.

The Smash the Myth series consists of micro-interventions in urban spaces where Grubic, in a temporary and sometimes illegal way, affixes a banner to iconic places in various cities. Started in the mid-90s with the project Micro-museum of Revolutionary Heritage, the series has touched several cities such as Berlin at the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park and Dresden in front of the Academy of Fine Arts, and in Naples in the mythical Olivetti factory. Founded in 1955 on a project by the rationalist architect Luigi Cosenza, the former Olivetti Factory is a symbol of the humanistic vision of an enlightened industrialist whose business mission was directly linked to the well-being of its workers. With a socialist setting ante litteram for Italy, Adriano Olivetti, in Pozzuoli as in the other Italian locations of his factories, had wanted for his employees a place in symbiosis with nature and equipped with all the necessary services deeply convinced that work is a social redemption tool. Within this small eden for workers, Grubic has chosen to affix his “motto” on what had once been the library place par excellence for the enrichment of the spirit.