Ivan Ladislav Galeta

The Croatian artist Ivan Ladislav Galeta ranks among the most important representatives of European avant-garde film and video. Behind his mathematical and rhythmically constructed creations lies an extensive system of references which range from James Joyce and Plato to Stanley Kubrick and the realms of number and symbol in the Kabbalah. Symmetries, series, inversions, and cyclical forms are typical characteristics of his captivatingly beautiful films. Galeta's almost obsessive attempt to re-order space, time, and narrative finds its most perfect realization in Two Times in one Space (1976/84) and Water Pulu 1869 1896 (1987/88). While in the first film he simultaneously tells and retells, by means of a double exposure delayed by 216 frames, the story of a mundane situation which is coming apart at the seams, in Water Pulu a putative water polo match between North Korea and France becomes an intoxicating contest between form and content.

Galeta's works in video excel not only through their radically minimalistic form, but also thanks to their very humorous approach. Here, the artist is frequently his own protagonist. He also tends to use newly developed media technologies in a fashion which is downright absurd. For his most recent works, Galeta finds reference points in nature: like a gardener equipped with a camera, he sifts through the vast resources provided by the environment.