I first made a studio visit with Sanja Iveković about ten years ago, when I was invited to organize a large-scale exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia. She impressed me instantly. I recall thinking, “This is an inspiring artist with whom I will forge a long-lasting relationship.” A feminist, activist, and video pioneer, Iveković came of age in the early 1970s, when artists broke free from mainstream institutional settings, laying the ground for a form of praxis antipodal to official art. Part of the generation known as the Nova Umjetnička Praksa (New Art Practice), she has produced works of cross-cultural resonance that range from conceptual photomontages to video and performance. Last month I visited Iveković again in Zagreb, this time to discuss her first survey exhibition in the U.S., which is scheduled to open at MoMA at the end of 2011. Read more
