Igor Grubić
Feriköy Greek School

Born in 1969, Zagreb. Lives in Zagreb

Artist and activist Igor Grubić produces multidisciplinary work focusing on the realities of often enforced official narratives of the 'transition' from post-communist to neoliberal societies.
The project East Side Story (2006-08) refers to the violent attacks by citizens against the first Gay Pride celebrations in Belgrade (2001) and Zagreb (2002). In response to the violence that followed attempts to 'liberate and clean public space' in both capitals, the artist has been building an archive of video documentation. These events and their documentation are being used as a point of departure for the further thematisation of violence against the Other in public. He invited dancers and choreographers, some of whom took part in the Gay Pride celebrations, to reinterpret the documented events using public spaces in Zagreb, often the original locations. These unusual 'choreographies' alienate the seemingly peaceful streets of Zagreb, and the violence expressed against sexual minorities in the post war Yugoslavian context appears as a substitute for the seemingly suppressed hatred against ethnic minorities.
The intolerance towards sexual minorities makes the everyday reality of transition questionable, and exposes stagnation and regression as the unavoidable results of equating the principles of liberal democratic public space with a neoliberal market economy.