THE DEROGATION OF HANDICRAFT: READY-MADES AND APPROPRIATION IN CROATIAN SCULPTURE

Sa？etak Artistic production in Croatia throughout the 20th century attests to the appearance of new art movements and techniques, among them readymade and appropriation strategies. Based on the comparison of the work of Croatian artists and those from a wider European and global contexts (primarily with the experiments initiated by Marcel Duchamp), the precisely defined criteria of the aforementioned techniques, as well as the establishment of circumstances which connect these artists, it is possible to establish the modes and rates by which the adopted and evolved artistic strategies affected the development and reception of art in Croatia and, as is the focus of this text, broadened the scope of sculpture to include the mundane. The acceptance of the art form of the ready-made and the use of appropriation strategies in a wider sense indicates an openness on behalf of Croatian society as well as of art and cultural institutions towards external influences, and thus also their progressiveness and Contemporaneity in comparison with the ideologically defined, isolationist attitude which was dominant up to the 1950s. By creating works on par with those of contemporary European and global art practices and art theory, a group of neo-avant-garde and postavant-garde artists (among which are some members of the Gorgona group, the Group of Six Artists, the ViGo collaboration and certain conceptual artists) enabled the perception of art in Croatia to take place in a considerably wider context, taking into consideration its specific socio-political situation and artistic traditions. With the development of ready-made and appropriation strategies, artists subverted numerous artistic conventions. This text is focused on one of the more contentious conventions, that is the shift of the role of the literal and metaphorical "artist's hand" in the production of artwork. By comparing some key characteristics of ready-mades to selected examples of Croatian artistic production, similarities and differences in the process of the creation of an artwork shall be established. Based on such a comparison, the logical progression of the affirmation of these artistic forms during the second half of the 20th century in Croatia shall also be explained