Though his engagement with OHO was short-lived, Tomaž Šalamun played an important role in shaping the group’s artistic trajectory. A poet who had traveled extensively through Western Europe, spent time in Rome with the artists of the Italian Arte Povera, and was working as a curator at Ljubljana’s Moderna Galerija, Šalamun encouraged OHO to congeal by 1969 into a more tightly knit collective of four members (Milenko Matanović, David Nez, Tomaž Šalamun, and Tomaž’s brother, Andraž). The Pradedje exhibition in Zagreb marked this moment of transition; the catalog of this exhibition was one of the first things that Taja Vidmar sent Kynaston McShine. The installations captured in it (made of bricks, hay, plastic, and an entire salvaged roof) reflect the influence of Arte Povera, combined with a desire to affront and scandalize the museum-going audience. As David Nez has put it, “There was lots of fun and positive energy, that's what kept us going. There was also the adrenaline rush of pushing the boundaries and being outrageous.
This “interview” captures the outrageousness particularly well. Tomaž Šalamun’s litanies of insults and self-aggrandizing epithets reveal his insistence on having the freedom to say whatever he wanted, which got him in trouble in 1964 when he was briefly imprisoned following the publication of his first poem. According to Matthew Rohrer, “Šalamun …single-handedly ushered in a postmodern exuberance into Slovenian and…Yugoslavian poetry,” combining the “classic seriousness” of the European Modernist tradition with “thumbing his nose at everything, including himself.”
One sees such tension between deference and irreverence towards Art and Culture in the professionally produced Zagreb catalog, where Šalamun and Matanović’s transcribed conversation followed jargon-heavy essays – the critical apparatus necessary to legitimize an artistic practice. One also sees this tension in the unorthodox dialogue itself, which oscillates widely between visions of grandeur on the one hand and “impostor syndrome” anxiety on the other. It also moves between the poles of playfulness and genuine concern with the purpose of one’s activity, as when Šalamun declares, “inside me lies the entire european tradition, i exhibit brick and hay.” Matanović is the more earnest of the two speakers, and his allusion to the Triglav performance (discussed in Part 2 of “The OHO Group, "Information," and Global Conceptualism avant la lettre”) points to concern with the social impact of OHO’s work: “i’ll exhibit outside, my work has a social dimension…the social dimension is that triglav mountain is in a park.”
— Ksenya Gurshtein
Cover of exhibition catalogue Milenko Matanović, David Nez, Andraš Šalamun, Tomaš Šalamun from the Museum of Modern Art (Galerija Suvremene Umjetnosti) Zagreb, 1969. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Photo: Ksenia Nouril
Cover of exhibition catalogue Milenko Matanović, David Nez, Andraž Šalamun, Tomaž Šalamun from the Gallery of Contemporary Art (Galerija Suvremene Umjetnosti) Zagreb, 1969. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York.
First page of the interview with Milenko Matanović and Tomaž Šalamun in the exhibition catalogue Milenko Matanović, David Nez, Andraš Šalamun, Tomaš Šalamun from the Museum of Modern Art (Galerija Suvremene Umjetnosti) Zagreb, 1969.
First page of the interview with Milenko Matanović and Tomaž Šalamun in the exhibition catalogue Milenko Matanović, David Nez, Andraž Šalamun, Tomaž Šalamun from the Gallery of Contemporary Art (Galerija Suvremene Umjetnosti) Zagreb, 1969.
Second page of the interview with Milenko Matanović and Tomaž Šalamun in the exhibition catalogue Milenko Matanović, David Nez, Andraš Šalamun, Tomaš Šalamun from the Museum of Modern Art (Galerija Suvremene Umjetnosti) Zagreb, 1969.
Second page of the interview with Milenko Matanović and Tomaž Šalamun in the exhibition catalogue Milenko Matanović, David Nez, Andraž Šalamun, Tomaž Šalamun from the Gallery of Contemporary Art (Galerija Suvremene Umjetnosti) Zagreb, 1969.
an interview
with milenko matanović
and tomaž šalamun
mm is milenko matanović
tš is tomaž šalamun
tš milenko matanović is the biggest impostor living
he is a bitch, a wretch, a nincompoop
he is a chump
he picks his nose
he’s such a dreadful chump that one can only yawn
milenko matanović has ears and mange
he’s a fascist he wears makeup
he’s a chump impostor with curls in his hair
he’s the general secretary of the fascist party
he’s a chump
he’s the biggest living idiot
he lies and equivocates so much that everything he says amounts to one
outrageous lie
he flies through the air and nonetheless squints
he eats flies that he picks and scrapes
he is scum
he grew up crooked and he’ll die crooked
he’s a despicable impotent wet fish and even slow to stink
milenko matanović will wind up in a grave
he is scum
i know everything about you and there’s nothing i can ask you
mm ask me what i’m working on
tš what are you working on
mm i’m pondering my life’s work
tš i’m pondering my life’s work too
mm what will your life’s work be
tš bread
mm i’m going to divert the sava river to the adriatic sea
tš i’ll haul the sand
mm inside me lies the entire european tradition, what do you exhibit
tš inside me lies the entire european tradition, i exhibit brick and hay
mm i exhibit ten roman hillocks. what is the conceptual level
tš i’d like all the contingencies that go with it
mm no, i wouldn’t, what are you going to do?
tš i’ll build out a gallery, i’ll buy a bus, a bus driver, i’ll drive passengers around
the exhibition space. i’ll plow the soil in front of the gallery and sow wheat
mm i’ll exhibit outside, my work has a social dimension
tš what should i ask you
mm ask me what the social dimension is
tš what is the social dimension
mm the social dimension is that triglav mountain is in a park. i make films
tš we don’t have much time left
mm i’m a director and choreographer
tš i’m a biblical figure, are you sad
mm i think so, urgent action must be taken
tš i’ll plow the soil and sow the wheat
mm i’m sad because there are no more horses on the streets of ljubljana
tš i’m building a house
mm are you working enough
tš that’s bad, do you want me to write that down
mm i don’t know, it doesn’t matter to me what gets written down. i have a friend
david, an american, i have a high pulse, i’ll go shear sheep, let’s talk
professionally
tš what do you think your contribution is to the riches of european iconography
mm time will tell
tš i think we live well. i’m a native american, i pay homage to myself
you are a genius tomaž šalamun
you are brilliant you are beautiful
you are tall you are a colossus
you are strong you are magnificent
you are the greatest who ever lived
you are a king you are rich
you are a genius tomaž šalamun in accordance with nature
we must acknowledge
you are a lion the stars revere you
every day the sun addresses itself to you
you are everything you are mount ararat
you are eternal you are the morning star
you are without ending and beginning you are without shadow and dread
you are light you are heavenly fire
look at the eyes of tomaž šalamun
look at the magnificent radiance of the sky
look at his hands look at his waist
look at how he walks look at how he touches the earth
your skin smells of oil
your hair is sun dust
the stars wonder who wonders at the stars
the sea is blue who is guardian of the sky
you are a ship amidst the sea neither wind nor whirlwind can destroy
you are a mountain amidst the plains you are a lake amidst the wasteland
you are the speculum humanae salvationis you are the ferryman from evil
beside you every light is dull
every sun darkness every brick every house every crumb
every speck of dust
every thread every blood every peak every snow
every tree every life every valley every chasm
every antagonism every lamb every roasting
every rainbow
mm you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ve mastered it poorly. that’s fine. i’m
rescuing you. you’re my scruffiest lamb
tš you’re my scruffiest lamb
mm you’re my scruffiest lamb
tš you’re my scruffiest lamb
mm what? don’t write that. what do you want to be when you grow up?
tš i’ve already grown up, i am big
mm when i become big i’ll be a colossus. we’re done
