Snežana Golubović

"Listen to the ground / There is movement all around / There is something going on / and I can feel it..."

Tony Manero, born as a loser who had no other choice but to find his way in his community, out of his community, far away, far ahead....

Young Italian-American, dealing with social tensions, lost but ready to risk, sometimes restless but always passionate, weak but intuitively aware of his talent and his "power".
Tony Manero became a hero of a whole generation. And for decades he "ruled"  dance floors all over the world.

 

One low budget film production became an overnight blockbuster. John Travola became a hero to many generations, the music of The Bee Gees became the tune of many lives... 
From Zero to Hero.

Toni Manero reminds me of us – artists, performance artists – hard workers and partly losers, but mostly brilliant on their / our "floor(s)" /  "fields".

 

Like Tony Mareno – we, artists, we take our steps and go, need to go, have to go... go through... go ahead... go on...

And right now – I feel it more than ever. "There is movement all around / There is something going on / and I can feel it..."

It is "our moment".

 

In these times that we are all going through – worldwide – art and artist become and are becoming more and more responsible for the future of this world, for our Planet... There is a huge "dance floor" – we still have to conquer it and step on it fearlessly, and – dance! Dance to the tunes we want to dance to... not to the sound, silence & noise of politicians, money-makers, conservatives & extreme haters – those people who decide (or think that they have a right to decide) about our lives, try and teach us something that they have (mostly & obviously) no clear, no pro-human ideas about & hardly any clue about "real life" – the life of billions of people who live right now on the Planet Earth.

 

But – how can we – artists (mostly poor artists) - change it?

Already in the sixties Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sang about it:

"Teach your children well / Their father's hell / Did slowly go by / And feed them on your dreams..."

Still, how we can follow those dreams and make them true / make them become our reality and our children's future?

 

In 2021 we, in Germany, celebrated 100 years since Joseph Beuys was born.

I asked my students again & again the same question: Do you know Joseph Beuys?.
There was always the same answer – a long, deep sound of silence.
And then I would ask myself – how and where does this silence come from?
There were so many reports about him during the last months, so many articles in all the newspapers, so many exhibitions, events...

 

Even Wikipedia knows that Joseph Beuys was "highly influential" not just in the international contemporary art scene during the second part of the 20th century, but also in the social life of his country.

 

The man who established the "free academy" – "freie internationale Universität", talked about the fact that the creative power of the people is threatened and will be soon completely ruined by capitalism... the man who proclaimed "Jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler" / "everyone is an artist" ... and believed that art is CAPITAL for everyone.

 

Not such a long time ago I told one well-known German sociologist that Joseph Beuys was a social worker - all artists are social workers and all social workers should be artists too. He did not like my statement at all and felt obviously provoked and quite offended.

 

But teaching performance art and performative arts in social fields at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences shows me how true and important that spontaneously made statement was and is.

 

As an artist and a scholar I am confronted daily with the question of how can we make things better / how can we change the world, feed all the hungry, stop the wars, greed, nonsense, corruption, terror, violence & haters, save animals & nature, give our children / new generations a solid base to live better than we do, do something concrete against climate change, keep our beautiful planet vivid and blooming... how can we all remember what humanity means & be human / be human again? My answer is always the same: just with & through ART.

 

And – EDUCATION.  Exchange, knowledge, an open minded society without any prejudices are the first and most important steps in that kind of "human ART evolution" – our new "revolution".

To think big we have to start small – in our surroundings, our community… teach our children well… learn from them… and try to connect, making our small communities bigger and bigger.

To me, like Ai Weiwei writes about himself in his Memoir - 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows - "art is in a dynamic relationship with reality, with our way of life and attitude to life, and it should not be placed in a separate compartment."

 

Strange but true, the Corona pandemic forced us to make art online and at the same time this strange period of isolation and not being able to make live art gave us a chance or even inspired us to make many (online) art projects – international events with no or almost no financial means or support.

 

Still - performance art has to be / needs to be LIVE. And has to find new spaces, new languages, new forms, new venues, go into public spaces… become a real and important part of everyone's daily life – all over the world.

 

Art and art expression are ancient human urges and needs. Why did we forget and ignore that?

So many thoughts to exchange, so many things to do, so many performances to show, so many art works to make, so many strategies to develop, so many connections to establish, so much justice to fight for, so many things to teach and learn… so many steps to make in order to move and change this world.

 

So many challenges in this endless field, on this amazing "dance floor" - united in the pandemic and world politics misery - where we are all right now and we "dance" and have to start to "dance" in the way that we want to and can do.

 

I deeply believe that a solid education, curiosity, a readiness to experiment and risk, not being afraid of the unknown and of failure, having an open mind & a warm heart – which the essence of art / performance art can move and change not just in an individual but also in groups and communities, can affect and make a strong impact on a much larger social, political and environmental scale.

 

Bringing performative arts into schools and universities, not just art schools, and into the fields of social, scientific and human studies, bringing them into public spaces, connecting people of different backgrounds, interests and knowledge, in a playful but at the same time serious and philanthropic way, could open many new doors, widen horizons and make life in art and art in life "live", stronger and more influentially. And keep us all stayin' (a)LIVE.

 

Photos & Credits

Snežana Golubović
ARTIST LIFE, 2020
with photos taken by Matthias Dürr

About ARTIST LIFE – Stayin' (a)LIVE This photo-serial was made in Frankfurt am Main / Germany, in "Mainhatten", on one icy cold December evening during the second Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. Christmas was knocking on the door, the city was well decorated as usual, but silent, empty, somehow scary... no signs of life around.

Matthias Dürr, great photographer and dear friend & I went out that night for "a dance". And - we "danced" through the "ghost town", freezing but conquering the lonely streets with passion, joy and warmth... rare cars passed by, some even stopped, the drivers smiled and waved... looking for all tomorrow's parties...

All images © Snežana Golubović / Matthias Dürr. The use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission from the artists is obtained.

About The Artist

Snežana Golubovićis an artist and writer. Born in former Yugoslavia, she moved to Germany in 1992 and has worked independently as an actress / performer. From 2003 to 2007 she was a member of the Independent Performance Group (I.P.G.), which was founded and led by Marina Abramović. Since 2013 she has been a co-founder and member of the performance art trio TRaG (Trojan, Reiser and Golubović).Her works have been shown internationally at, among others: Van Gogh Museum / Amsterdam, Avignon Theatre Festival, Venice Biennale, as well as at numerous exhibitions and performance art festivals in Europe, Asia, North and South America. She is currently Professor for Performative cultural education at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences.
www.snezanagolubovic.com