It would be difficult to imagine in today’s context, but it’s worth trying. Fifty years ago, it was possible that during the height of the tourist season, the main topic of a small Dalmatian town – or “misto”, as you prefer – was an art colony that included dozens of artists from different countries, politically hostile to one another, and there weren’t many places nearby where they could meet in this way. Established and very important artists, though difficult for most to understand because they dealt with certain abstractions.

Moreover, their accommodation was paid for by the People’s University, a local or cultural centre – in other words, the local community from taxpayers’ pockets. But still, a source of pride rather than resentment for the community. The place or “misto” didn’t depend on tourism to that extent. Industry reigned, after all, and employment was plentiful. And the artists weren’t asking for payment for their work! They would even leave some abstract, but beautiful, artwork as a permanent legacy in public spaces that would last at least half a century. They would even bear their own travel costs. Fortunately so, because there were certainly artists from everywhere!

Hard to imagine, we know.

But it was true, about fifty years ago. This refers to the International Artists Meetings in Vela Luka (1968-1972), which, together with another type of gathering on Korčula, form the backbone of the anthology “20^th Century Heritage”.

“In the case of the International Artists Meetings in Vela Luka, which I studied, I came across fascinating data about the level of production. Actors from the primary, secondary and tertiary economic sectors all participated in the event’s production. In Vela Luka at that time, there was no unemployment; there was strong industry. At the municipal level, they were able to finance such a thing; they didn’t need the republic level. The economic models are interesting to compare with today’s, in which such a thing is almost impossible, which brings us to the key word – sustainability. Or rather, the sustainability of the island”, Darko Fritz tells us. He is an artist, independent curator, researcher and founder of the Korčula association Grey Zone, under whose leadership a symposium was held in Korčula in 2022.

And this is not just a curiosity. In the text from the anthology written by art historian Ljiljana Kolešnik, we are informed that during the sixties alone, some seventy art colonies were registered in Yugoslavia. Their number would not have been possible without the specifics of the socio-economic system, but also the possibilities and will of local self-governments.

“To connect the story with the Grey Zone’s other project line – all this goes against the narrative that tourism is the only economic branch through which we can generate development. The relatively recent history that shows the opposite is being forgotten. In our case, we show this using the example of culture”, Fritz continues.

But it’s not just about the art colonies; the other side of the thematic framework here is another type of gathering.

Just a few kilometres away, the Korčula Summer School (1963-1974) was taking place simultaneously. Philosopher Mislav Žitko writes in the anthology about the position of Marxist thinkers gathered in Korčula. The philosophers and sociologists of the famous Praxis school were the only concrete opposition to the regime from the left, albeit only intellectual.

In August of the famous year 1968 – and in those days, by the way, the International Artists Meeting was also being held a few kilometres away in Vela Luka – the theme of the Korčula Summer School was Marx and Revolution, and Ernst Bloch, Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Marcuse and other giants of twentieth-century philosophy participated.

These were days when Warsaw Pact tanks were establishing order in rebellious Czechoslovakia, and there was widespread speculation about whether Yugoslavia would become the next terrain for Soviet training in strictness. In the publication, we read about Czechoslovak artists huddled around radio receivers, following events from their country. Their colleagues, like the Praxis philosophers at the symposium a few kilometres from Vela Luka, wholeheartedly condemned the Stalinist mode of action in Eastern Europe.

“Yugoslavia was non-aligned at that time, so artists from both Cold War blocs could come to the colony. In the sixties, a number of artistic projects took advantage of this fact. One such is the Music Biennale Zagreb (MBZ), which has survived to this day”, Fritz tells us.

Writing about the geopolitical context of the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War period, sociologist Paul Stubbs writes in the publication about a bridge between east and west, built on the principles of more peaceful coexistence and the right to self-determination. Thanks to this context, Korčula could become a sort of safe destination, something that cultural and intellectual centres of mutually opposing blocs could not boast about.

So, a socialist one-party state, which together with partners in the Non-Aligned Movement wanted to pressure the United Nations to behave in accordance with its documents, is faced with greater leftists than themselves who want the ruling party to behave more faithfully to its postulates on the domestic front.

Oh yes, another thing that is difficult to digest from the comfort of this time. They share, among other things, a demand for – democratisation! From the democratisation of international relations, through the democratisation of self-managing socialism to the democratisation of art and culture.

“I can agree with the thesis that democratisation is one of the key concepts of the publication. In the particular case I’m dealing with, work with the community was a very emphasised aspect. The last, third International Meeting focused on the community, starting from amateur artists to involving the community in all possible ways and forms of expression. And this through various media, from theatre to multimedia. This is something that today is called community art, the work of art with the community, just as artistic residencies have their predecessors in art colonies. In the context of democratisation, it should be emphasised that all the stories in the publication revolve around the mythical year 1968, which moved towards the democratisation of everything, from social to sexual relations, and even artistic creation. In a way, this is about the heritage of ’68”, explains Fritz.

It’s worth mentioning, in the context of working on art with the community that Fritz tells us about and writes about, fantastic examples like when French composer Luc Ferrari invited everyone from the local orchestra to children with whistles and makeshift instruments to create a symphony, “a new musical genre that reflects contemporaneity”. Although Korčula was left with a serious intervention in the public space in the form of mosaics made by renowned artists as a legacy of the mentioned 1968 meetings, Fritz tells us that the story is mostly known in Vela Luka, and predominantly by people who remember the event: “It was important for me to explore the possibilities of gathering artists, accumulating and transferring knowledge. Conservative forces since the nineties have wanted to erase precisely this history from the era of socialist Yugoslavia, which includes good practices, from urbanism and spatial planning to organising international meetings that generate new knowledge, and are not copies of others.”

“If we wanted to commission twenty world artists today to work that would be permanently placed in public space, it would cost much more than it cost to work in the format of art colonies. These were established visual artists who came to Luka in 1968, artists with profiles as affirmed as Edo Murtić, who himself participated in other colony gatherings. These are people who after the Second World War fought for abstraction in the visual arts, which was especially important for artists from Eastern Bloc countries”, our interlocutor explains the context of the activities of the International Artists Meetings in Vela Luka, supported by local political and cultural bodies but also by the wider community, which was proud of such a thing.

“We want to revalue what we consider good practices. From researching particular topics from contemporary history, we move towards the geopolitical contextualisation of these events”, concludes the editor of the publication, Darko Fritz, at the end of our conversation.

That’s not all from the book. Korčula as a toponym connects with the text by author Sani Sardelić about Bernard Bernardi, who designed the interiors of hotels in his native city of Korčula in the manner of total design. This is a term that represents functional design solutions for interiors coordinated with the architecture of the building. In addition, we have a display of Igor Grubić’s art project Untitled (Praxis), with which the artist intervened in public space with one of the most important messages of the Praxis philosophers: “The critique of everything that exists begins with self-criticism.” At the very end, we read about a more recent artistic action in which Ante Marinović, in the spirit of the International Meetings in which he himself participated, began work with the Korčula community on a mosaic in public space, hoping it would become the longest mosaic of this type in the world.

The Korčula association Grey Zone works within the framework of four programme lines in which they deal with the history of contemporaneity, new materialisms, politics of green spaces and critical tourism. The publication can be read for free here in English.

Efforts like this show through good examples how research of local practices from recent history can result in conclusions about big stories. The picture of a time thus, piece by piece, is assembled like a Korčula mosaic.