KONZUM | CONSUME
15th Festival Privh. KNAP Center for Culture. Zagreb, Croatia. October 6, 2017. *premiere*
Kevin Doyle -- writer, photographer, performer, film/audio design.
A solo performance with media that investigates the archive of the late Croatian artist, Željko Zorica (1957-2013), and re-contextualizes this archive in the midst of encroaching consumerism and tensions between Old Zagreb and New Zagreb.
Created during 4 weeks in 2017 with the support of a 2016 CEC ArtsLink grant to travel to Croatia and interrogate the archive of my late friend, artist Željko Zorica. The initial idea was to create a new performance borrowing from his techniques. This was retained, but as time went on, it evolved into an interrogation of Zagreb, the city itself, and re-imagining an alternate vision for it; different from the dominant consumerist trends currently changing the city. The final performance incorporated Zorica's "practical joke" techniques with Doyle's own writing, photography, and short films from my time in Zagreb.
Zorica and Doyle met during the 2012 Perforacije Festival in Zagreb, while Doyle was working in Europe under a Cultural Exchange Fund Award from APAP/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Zorica died the following year. In one of his last interviews, Zorica stated: “Sometimes it happens that someone from the audience emerges with the exact answers to the riddle of the work. The last time that happened was Kevin Doyle, from the group Sponsored By Nobody. He talked to me about my work, as if he was actually me."
"KONZUM | CONSUME" was made possible in part with funds from a 2016 CEC ArtsLink Grant Award, FACE Croatia, the Croatian Ministry of Culture, Studio Artless, Centar kulture na Peščenici - KNAP, Web of performing arts (founded by Kultura Nova), a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, and in-kind support from Culture of Change/Student Center Zagreb.
For more information on Željko Zorica, whose work was also presented at La Mama (2012) and Abrons Art Center (2013) in New York, a stunning new book was published in 2017 . It contains full-color photographs of Zorica’s larger installation-performances, which draw strong comparisons to the work of David Wojnarowicz, Olivier Py, and Abattoir Fermé. https://www.perforacije.com/copy-of-ina-sladic
Performance photo credits: Nikola Zorica.
Still photography photo credits: Kevin Doyle.
