COURAGE

savienojot kolekcijas

The “Exploitation of the Dead“ Collection by the self-educated neo-avantgarde artist Mladen Stilinović was compiled in socialist Croatia in the period from 1984 to 1990. It is a cycle of paintings dealing with the theme of dispersal or disappearance of symbols, both those widely accepted, such as the Christian cross, as well as the symbols of the Yugoslav socialist period, such as the red star. The author detects changes that affected the socialist system at the symbolic level in the 1980s and puts them in the context of art in a subversive way by using ideological and political reality.

The FV 112/15 Group Collection is a blend of artistic materials representing the time, social movements, and lifestyle of young people in Slovenia in the 1980s. It documents a central part of Ljubljana’s subculture and the alternative youth movement through the work of an amateur theatre group called the FV 112/15 Theatre and through the activities of three alternative clubs. The group cultivated an ironic attitude toward socialism and deconstructed bourgeois stereotypes.

István Bibó (1911–1979) was a Hungarian political scientist, sociologist, and scholar on the philosophy of law. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Bibó acted as the Minister of State for Imre Nagy’s second government. When the Soviets invaded and crushed the revolution, he was the last minister left at his post in the Hungarian parliament building. Rather than flee, he remained in the building and wrote his famous proclamation, “For Freedom and Truth,” until he awaited arrest. Bibó became a role model for dissident intellectuals in the late communist era and a symbol of non-violent civilian resistance based on a firm moral stand.
Since Bibó’s death in 1979, the family collection of his bequest, which includes personal documents, photos, manuscripts, books, and video and sound recordings, has been in the care of art historian and educator István Bibó Jr., who keeps the materials in his home in Budapest.