Iveković

Sanja Iveković
Triangle 2000+,Zagreb, Savska 1, 10 May 1979
Duration: 18 min

The action takes place on the day of the President's visit to the city. It develops as intercommunication between three persons:

1- a person on the roof of the high building, which is across the street from my apartment,
2- a policeman on the street in front of the house,
3- myself on the balcony.

Due to the cement construction of the balcony, only the person on the roof can actually see me and follow the action. My presumption is that this person has a pair of field glasses and a walkie-talkie. I also notice that the policeman in the street has a walkie-talkie.

The action begins when I walk out on the balcony and sit on a chair. I drink whiskey, read a book, and pretend to masturbate. After some time a policeman rings on my doorbell and orders that "persons and objects should be removed from the balcony."

Triangle 2000+, 1979
photographs
From the start of her artistic career, Sanja Ivekovic has worked with photography and video. A large part of her work focuses on the social position of women, especially on the strategies of representation of women and their social roles.
The photographs show an action performed by Asanja Ivekovic on the balcony of her flat in Zagreb on the day Tito's visit to the city. The depiction of a woman on a balcony as a motif with a long history in western painting, speaking both of the external and internal space. Women are confined to their homes. They can observe the activity outside from the balcony, but at the same time they are being observed. The work indirectly speaks about the concept of public space, the geopolitical situation at that time and participate in political activities. The action may also be understood as a form of civil insubordination. It involved tree people:

the person on a roof of the hotel across the street;
the policeman in the street in front of the artist?s building;
the artist in the balcony.

In the artist's words: "because the concrete screen of the balcony, the action can only be seen and observed by the person on the hotel roof. I assume that he is equipped with binoculars and a walkie-talkie, with which he can contact the policeman in the street. The action begins when I go out onto the balcony. I bring two chairs, a bottle of whisky, cigarettes and some books. I sit, drink, smoke and read. After a while I lift my skirt and pretend that I'm masturbating. Soon the doorbell goes off and a man introducing himself an official orders me to remove all persons and objects from the balcony. This was the end of the action."

Igor Zabel