Heroines The reappearance of the socialist female partisan in Irma Markulins work-cycle „8 of 91“
In former Yugoslavia a proud total of 91 women were officially nominated as national heroines. Arguably no other country ever had such a number of female hero-figures in their national Pantheon. With the death of Tito, the outbreak of the civil war and the dominance of nationalist ideas, these women rapidly faded into obscurity – or, in other words, were forced into obscurity. In the last time on can recognize an increase of those heroines and they are declared „national heroes“ by the former Yugoslavian socialist republics. In doing so, especially the extraordinary personalities of these heroines are instrumentalized for the idea of nationhood.
In her work-cycle „8 of 91“ Markulin uses photographs from 8 of these heroines she found in local archives and transforms them into large scale oil paintings. In her approach no differences of nationality or ethnicality are made. Quite on the contrary, Markulin lets the heroines enter into a dialogical situation, in which they are able to take effect on the foundation of both, shared memories and heritage. The paintings are nonetheless not only depictations of these heroic women. The artist actively engages with her portrait series in the contemporary handling of commemoration and points to the process of neglect regarding the iconic contents appointed to these heroines by socialism.
The painted portraits resemble crunched photographic depictions. With this, Markulin alludes to the action of throwing something away, as well as to the act of neglect itself. It is, in a way, as if one would get rid of the portait of a loved one after a hurtfull break-up: one crunches it, one garbles it, throws it away and – finally – one forgets about it. Besides of this act of „crunching“ the image, there is also a certain notion of grading to be found in the portraits, acting in a way as a reestablishing and a rediscovery of the formerly lost. By using this style of representation, Irma Markulin successfully visualizes two dimensions of time. The works thus not only broach the act of neglect, but also the act of remembrance. With this the artist addresses an important sociopolitical process that is underway in the successor states emerging from former Yugoslavia: the renewed attention given to these heroines stemming from all parts of former Yugoslavia.
In her 1997 work „Gen XX“ Sanja Ivekovic, one of the best known croatian contemporary artists, addressed the issue of the heroines shortly after the war. „GenXX“ is a portrait series of nineties supermodels entitled with the names of Yugoslavian heroines by Ivekovic. A work series set against the act of neglect. Irma Markulins work on the other hand focuses more on remembrance than on neglect – but most of all, she addresses the issue of HOW the remembrance of the anti- Fascist fight is dealt with in today’s Croatia.
The main commemoration of partisans in former Yugoslavia was generally through memorials. Some of these massive memorials were created by famous artists and have an avantgardistic feel to them even up to today. The colossal stone carved memorial „Sutjeska“ by sculptor Miodrag Živković might serve as an example. The sculpture resembles a massive block of stone, that seems to be torn in two half’s by massive force and whose two halves stand one next to the other. The cubic formations growing out of their inner sides remind of the cubic forms in Markulins paintings. Through the application of different shades of grey and brown and the simulation of light and shadow, the artist evokes the impression of faces carved out of stone in her female heroine portraits. In addition, the coarse brush strokes apply a strong plastic structure on the paintings surface, which reminds the use of a gouge. Looked at from point blank range, the brush stroke seems to succeed rather in the cubic or, if we go further, the stone form, than that of a distinct face. In this way, Markulin merges the original photographic template with the tradition of the yugoslavian memorials and the paintings become to be a „plastic structural depiction, erected in memory of a person or an event“.
Markulins paintings possess an act of commemoration that does not just stop in the aesthetics of socialism, but rather uses it playfully. There is however always the notion of cultic adoration also in this special form of commemoration. With this in mind, Markulins paintings can also be regarded as a simple homage or reverence, in which the heroine’s portraits symbolically represent victory and solidarity against repression and force of arms.
Text by Klaudija Sabo & Translation by Philipp Koch
exhibition view Berlin, juli 2014, photo Michael Jungblut
exhibition view Berlin, juli 2014, photo Michael Jungblut