Velvet Underground
2002
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.
