Vlado Martek (b. 1951, Zagreb) calls himself a pre-poet, and his work pre-poetry, that became the definition of his artistic practice. His creativity includes actions, exhibition-actions in cooperation and communication with the audience, on the streets and in public spaces. He creates works and anti-works, agitations, assemblages, text-diagrams written and drawn by hand. The fundamental feature of his work is the transmedial linking of language and visual arts in drawings, photographs, objects, paintings, actions, performances and installations. In the mid-seventies in Zagreb, together with Mladen and Sven Stilinović, Fedor Vučemilović, Boris Demur and Željko Jerman, he founded and was a member of the Group of Six Authors.

Vlado Martek sends us for the project a photograph from his studio in Zagreb with one of his agitation. Keeping score on the agitation, Art is winning over COVID-19 at 5:1.

Zagreb, 26/05/2020

Artists Respond project was started by the Institute for the Research of the Avant-Garde and the Marinko Sudac Collection. Addressing the current global pandemic, the project aims to virtually present the thoughts and attitudes of neo-avant-garde artists, their energy and the message they have for the present moment. This is the moment in which the world as we know it is on hold and the moment in which we need optimism and solidarity more than ever. We wish for the public to welcome the creative energy of these artists - artists who are ready to point out the state of things, to respond with art and creativity, as they have done in all difficult times in the past.

Vlado Martek was a participant of our Artist on Vacation project in 2012 and 2018, organised by the Institute for the Research of the Avant-Garde and the Marinko Sudac Collection, with Valamar Riviera d.d. in whose facilities they reside in Poreč.

See more: Artist on Vacation