Sanja Cvetnić / 2002
Every year in the first week of May and on the 19th of September the eyes of Neapolitans are fixed upon a small transparent vesse. In the dramatic scenery of the cathedral, in the midst of improbable crowd of believers and curious observers, the priests bring out the monstrance containing the blood of St. Januarius [San Gennaro), the patron of the city. They bring if to the reliqucary containing saint’s bones. If the coagulated martyr’s blood becomes liquid in the vicinity of his bones, grateful cries burst throughout fhe cathedral: Miracle! Miracle! The suspense of expectation subsides into contrite piety, few witnesses usually faint or get into hysteric ecstasy, but the rest of them disperse satisfied because St. Januarius answered their prayers again, thusassuring his miraculousc protection over the city.
Altnough The Second Vatican Council limited this ancient Neapolitan ritual to strict local usage and put St. Januarius in the second league of saints, the popular custom is still held. After the Roman verdict on the walls of Naples appeared the intimate entry to encourage the saint: San Genna futtetenne! (meaning: St. January, what do you care, but thestric translation is not decent).
Martyr’s blood that rises the temperature of the Mediterranean city is part of a powerful metaphoric of blood that appears with blend of horror and ecstasy in Christianity (Christ’s redeeming blood sacrifice, Eucharist frans-substontiation of wine in blood, saint’s blood…), folk wisdom (blood is thicker than water) and customs (blood feud), idioms [blue blood, strong blood, to make bad blood…), strong poetic images… Sometimes the horror and ecstasy ore not diminished by the scientific discoveries and possibilities – blood tests that reveal diseases, blood containing information on everything and anything – ancestors, quantity of consumed alcohol or cakes, liver condition and inflammatory processes on joints, sorting us by A, B, 0 or AB type, defining our Rhesus-factor as positive or negative, opens to eugenics, proves fatherhood, divides, connects, identifies… all of that in the drops of precious fluid. The blood-banks are always discussed in urged tones, the donators of the precious drops are requested, the hospitals dramatically summoning, using propaganda to entice the consciousness..-
Zlatko Kopljar’s performance and installation refer to multilayered symbolic charge of blood, this most impressively colored fluid that human being is able to produce. The emphasis on verily of blood-letting – directly, in front of the audience (witnesses) polemically discusses with foggy hagiographic information on methods of putting saints’ blood into monstrances (St. Januarius is not, of course, the only saint whose blood is preserved, not even the only one whose blood transforms from coagulated matter into liquid). Visual piety of Neapolitan believers who breathlessly follow the events in the ampoule opposes the mixed emotions and impressions of the gallery audience. Resistance, disgust, incredulity, indifference? The artist’s blood is not analyzed after the performance, although ;he specialized person performs the blood-letting. The artist puts the ampoule with his blood into the crystal cube (of serenity?) and leaves it as an exhibit. This Kopljar’s work focuses on the problem connected to dominant repertory of motifs that powerfully mark his performing expression and which he uses to build installations (pills, transparent chalice, altar, multiplied holy images applied on canvas as foundation for painting intervention, metal heart, prayers written on small pieces of paper inserted in walls, washing, metaphor of water). As in procession through some imaginary consecrated space (of art?) that appropriates the characteristics of. church interior, Kopljar often ventures into the recognizable complex of meaning: baptismal basin (washing, 1992.), apse (altar, chalice, 1995.), chapel (triptych – video, 2001.) and now treasury (monstrance, 2002.). Appropriation is enlarging -with strong consciousness and impulse to question social roles, Kopljar emphasizes artist as a giver, sometimes as a sacrifice and martyr, sometimes os a healer, then a rebel or at least a critic of communication noise and knots in human relationships. Strained and difficult relation between an artist and his immediate environment (gallery audience, institutions, critics, media) afflicts a new neuralgic spot in ever/work. On the other side, he shackles polemically charged expression to strictly directed, almost mechanical movements, and his installations are emphatically pure in form, classic symmetry, flawless polished surfaces. The cube of transparent monstrance functionally adopts the role of liturgical vessel, but entirely denying its form. The artist’s blood becomes dramaturgically parallel to the saint’s blood and, following the same process, gallery space becomes the consecrated church treasury. Aggressive assault and physical destruction of the institutional gallery space that Kopljar used to discuss in recent years (performance of pulling down the gallery walls – Ostrava, Split, Ljubljana) is now going the other way around – the way of consecration. But could the doubtful space be consecrated? Wouldn’t its bareness become even more powerful? Could institutional forms of cult and culture overlap leaving enough space to each other? The prize question in the end is critic’s-supplement to the polemic part of Kopljar s work: If intellectual’s brain is worth two Deutsch marks, what is the price of artist’s blood? Correct answers expressed in Euro to be written on post-card and sent to: San Gennaro, Cappella del tesoro, Duomo di Napoli, Via Duomo, 80100Napoli, Italia.
U artist’ futtetenne!