Presentation text 1998
12th Videobrasil - exhibit_ Breda Beban and Hrvoje Horvatic
Breda Beban and Hrvoje Horvatic
The collective work of Hrvoje Horvatic, whose works on video were always co-authored by Breda Beban, is a unique example of artistic expression using video resources. Not only because it parts away from all those hi-tech tricks peculiar to the special effects aesthetics prevailing in contemporary videoart, but basically because it creates its own universe intrinsically knit with the cultural tradition of old Yugoslavia, the birth country to both artists. Consequently, through the use of video's revolutionary language, their aesthetics preoccupations turn to the tradition of European films, inspired by directors such as Bresson and Godard.
Breda and Horvatic's unique path into the art world reveals how it became possible to attain this type of artistic language and expression when, as of 1985, both started to work together. Breda, born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, in 1952, spent part of her childhood in Skopje, capital of Macedonia, where she was able to live amid the world of Byzantine art and architecture which later greatly influenced her work. Graduated by the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts, she began her career as a painter in 1978. Influenced in the beginning by conceptual and minimalistic ideas, she soon found herself confronted with her own culture, specially with Byzantine art. In the early 80's she painted huge canvases that occupied whole walls to which she added the light of flames, an idea taken from medieval monasteries and which already showed her great concern with lighting.
In the meantime, Horvatic followed other paths. Born in Rijeka in 1958, also in old Yugoslavia, he graduated in 1984 from the Zagreb Academy of Theater, Cinema and Television. Between 1979 and 1984 he dedicated himself to directing 16mm short films, exploring an experimental aesthetics influenced by European and American vanguard art films.
The first meeting between the two of them occurred during a performatic presentation by Breda for a small number of guests, to which Horvatic showed up with a video camera. The next day they were already working together. They set off from a fortunate combination of complementary talents and resources to find two inexhaustible sources of ideas and artistic ideals.
In 1991, pressed by the political situation in Yugoslavia, they left the country precipitating a natural evolution of their work, given the international recognition they both had acquired. They began to produce installations in renowned exhibition halls with their artistic expressions also following a more universal significance. In 1994 both artists came to São Paulo - invited by Videobrasil - where they
presented the installation The Shape of Pain, through which the Brazilian public was able to witness the result of the alchemy between Breda Beban's fine arts talents and Horvatic's talent as a videoartist.
His premature death last year abruptly ended their cycle of joint work as partners.
This year, with Breda Beban's personal participation, their collective work is being honored with the presentation of four productions: Absence, She Said (1994), Jason's Dream of the Present (1997), Geography (1989), Taking on a Name (1987) and Hand on the Shoulder (1997).
(12th Videobrasil catalogue) ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL VIDEOBRASIL, "XII Videobrasil - Festival Internacional de Arte Eletrônica" [XII Videobrasil - International Electronic Art Festival]: from September 22 to October 11, 1998, pp. 35-37, São Paulo, SP, 1998.