Želimir KOŠČEVIĆ: Postal Packages exhibition statement

Postal Packages. Section of the 7th Paris Biennial.
Student Center Gallery, Zagreb
April 7-14, 1972

Unconventional, brave and provocative, conceptual art has witnessed its own history by the establishment of a special section at the Paris Biennial. There were also earlier attempts, as some museums and corporations have tried to systematize artistic concepts and reduce them to the level of catalogued data. Many artists accepted this game. The positive valorization of the Paris Biennial officially marked the end of the life of this idea which, at its core, is not foreign or unacceptable to us.

It is precisely for the sake of respect towards the key motivations of the artists, as well as in the name of the core idea of conceptual art, that we decided to attempt its revalorization. Instead of participating in the further deterioration of conceptual art, instead of supporting its demise under the gallery and museum lights, we have exhibited the content of this exhibition in its genuine state. We have exhibited – we believe – the sublimate of conceptual art – the postal package as postal package. We are aware that such a conception — an exhibition of a “postal package” — will be poorly received in an environment still hungry for basic information. It is not our duty, however, to cure the defects of the environment, to multiply those defects by shrugging our shoulders, nor to admit to these defects by displaying under glass, cautiously so that they would not be damaged, works whose core “intelligence” departs from such display. As always, we embraced risk, acknowledging above all the sincerity and essence of [artistic] expression. Art is not to be found under a glass, under a glass bell, art is facing us.
— Originally published in Novine Galerije SC (Student Center gallery newspaper) (March 1972): 135. Translated from Croatian by Ivana Bago.