SIZ or the Self-managed interest community is an association of authors who are approaching the art market collectively.
Materialistically grounded in social reality, SIZ Gallery, has chosen to confront the problem of financing artistic practice on the ideal and practical level. Drawing from historical avant-garde, which has due to mostly ephemeral artistic practices experienced the dissolution of the concrete art object that can be marketed (to which the art market has continuously adapted) SIZ considers the economical exchange of artistic goods and questions new social frames that grow from modified economical models.
On the level of ideas, discussing the art market , SIZ defines itself through the economically discarded but artistically never more relevant model. Collective affiliation of equal individuals made in order to jointly approach the public and the market is the modus operandi as well as the associations name*. By emphasizing the collectivistic aspects of the organization, but without strictly outlining financial plans, SIZ, in all it’s potentiality to shift from the artistic to the economical sphere nevertheless stays an art project. A similar approach can be seen from the so called Agreement [Ugovor] drafted by Sanja Iveković and Dalibor Martinis who when suggesting the ways of regulating the relationship of artists and cultural institutions manifest specific artistic positions more than place a valid legal document that serves for extra artistic reasons. [Iva Kovač&Elvis Krstulović]
* Self-managed interest community were collectives gathered on economical basis in order to stand jointly and strengthen their position inside the Yugoslav planned economy. From 2009 to 2012 SIZ Gallery programme is ran by Nemanja Cvijanović, from 2013 the programme of the SIZ Gallery is ran by Fokus Grupa. Artists, design groups and an NGO constituting SIZ are ABS, Art Fun Club, Milijana Babić, Tomislav Brajnović, Nemanja Cvijanović, Drugo more, Igor Grubić, Janez Janša, Janez Janša and Janez Janša, Fokus Grupa, Siniša Labrović, Cesare Pietroiusti, Oliver Ressler, ŠKART i Slaven Tolj.
The program of SIZ Gallery is supported by:
The City of Rijeka – Department of Culture, Primorsko-goranska County, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia. SIZ gallery works in close collaboration with MMSU Rijeka, Kamov Residency Programme and NGO Drugo More.