FRAGMENTS AND REVIEWS
 ON ANDREJ TISMA'S ART
 


     VISUAL POETRY AND MAIL ART  
 

   Andrej Tisma's art actions take place in the environment of the so-called expanded, but at the same time interwoven visual art and literary medium. Word, gesture, mathematical symbol or random snapshot meet in the same semantic plane to transform their barely hinted and contradictory semanticism. 
     Particularly interesting are Tisma's explorations in mail-art, a fairly recent artistic discipline, whose expansion over the past few years had pushed into the background conceptualism, concrete and visual poetry. In his mail-art creations Tisma makes use of stamps of his own manufacture ("remek delo / master piece", "neopisivo / undescribable" etc.) which he applies to postcards and other communicative material or employs them to intervene in official, mostly banal picture postcards, changing their kitsch appearance and message to a relevant poetic load. 
     Andrej Tisma's "Alter" is one of the top achievements of the Yugoslav  avant-guard in 
recent years. 
                                                                                              Miroljub Todorovic  

                                                                         (Epilogue of the  Alter  book, Vrsac, 1987) 

 

   

     MAIL ART AND RUBBER-STAMP ART   
 

     A multimedia artist, Andrej Tisma, started his activities in a new, mail-art medium, in the early 70’s. Mail-art has set out as a form of art called guerrilla, or underground art which endeavored to establish a closer contact with the recipient. 
     As for the art of stamps, Tisma has made stamps in a number of ways, applying different  techniques. His stamps probably rank among the most recognized ones in the world. In his case,  the word and the picture are one. It is in this sense, therefore, that this art will have its value in  the future as well. 

                                                      Zivan S. Zivkovic     

                         (TV Novi Sad, “Videopis” program, June 1992) 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


       PERFORMANCES - (SPI)RITUALS 
 

         Andrej Tisma is one of the few younger authors who in the current, changed circumstances in the world of art, continue to express themselves artistically in the way that was introduced in the 70’s and that could be termed - behavioral art. Namely, it is an art that does not find its expression in the production of art works: drawings, sculptures, graphics, but rather in the communication between the artist and his environment. 

        Certainly, what is also important are the thoughts, the ideas and endeavors the artist wishes to convey. It can be said that the ideas promoted by Tisma are very topical in the current circumstances. He is pleading for the establishment of communication among people, for cooperation and understanding. 

                                                                                                     Jesa Denegri  

                                                              (TV Novi Sad, “Videopis” program, June 1992) 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

        PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO ART 
 

          Tisma uses polaroids in very different ways, but the key system of combining them is based on the principle of Hegel’s triads. In other words, he juxtaposes two different pictures and it is up to the viewers to draw a conclusion from them. On the one hand, there is life, represented by powerful erotic scenes. On the other, he takes objects from nature, which could be called “found” objects and scenes that represent the other, the Thanatos. In such combinations, Tisma makes us wonder about the objective of art, about the meaning of modern life and, indeed, about what is it that artists should be doing. 
          Tisma's video has actually struck us as an entirely new approach to the creation of short artistic videos. He uses as his sources the current TV production, i.e. news, documentary and history programs, skillfully compiles them and creates a system which talks about an artist who has consciously and artfully weaved up an artistic viewpoint over a number of years, an attitude which certainly places Tisma among the leading figures of the contemporary art in this region. 
 

                                         Slavko Timotijevic  

                          (TV Novi Sad, “Videopis”, June 1992)

 

 

      

     NETWORKING, (SPI)RITUALS AND ANTI-EMBARGO 
 
 
      The attitude towards art as a particular kind of spiritual energy exchange, which existed before the appearance of modern avant-garde movements, and which can be found in theoretical and practical work of Andrej Tisma, a mid generation artist from Novi Sad, is embodied in his (artistic) shapes which stand as a unique phenomenon within our contemporary visual art and culture. 
      Following the traces of main conceptual art forms and being involved in visual poetry during the 1970-s Tisma started to do mail art. This artistic strategy was only a starting point in a path that led to some new possibilities for him. 
      Later on, he moved on from the artistic interventions on postcard and stamps towards communication by video and audio cassettes and computer inscriptions. This collective exchange of energy has brought the foundation of The Network, a world wide open system of communications that was defined by Tisma as "a spiritual sculpture which wraps up the whole planet". Artists' ideas circulate and meet within this global sculpture, establishing a new principle of selection, so that the most original ideas incredibly quickly and efficiently become the benefit of all the participants in communication. 
     Andrej Tisma has developed meet-art since the mid seventies which has transformed his multimedia activities. Since he considers that inspiration always vanishes to a certain degree when it becomes materialized, he gets more involved in projects that require direct with audience, and sometimes even their participation. The spiritual component of these artistic actions is stressed and he performs them under the name of (SPI)RITUALS. 
     Beside his recent performances in Belgrade and Milan, Tisma gave a lecture on his (SPI)RITUALS at L'INSTITUTE DES HAUTES ETUDES EN ARTS PLASTIQUES, Paris in 1990, after being invited by Pontus Hulten, who was the founder of the Modern Gallery in PARISIAN BEAUBOURG. In October 1992 Tisma presented these actions to audience in Seoul as well. During 1992 and 1993 he communicates within The Network sending his visual and textual works to his colleagues abroad in order to give them information about the situation in our culture under the sanctions. In September 1992 organizes "Anti-Embargo Networker Congress" in Sremski Karlovci. He continues this activity, especially after his recognition that his colleagues from all around the world are not fully aware of the consequences made by the sanctions, and their bad effect on our culture. Doing this Tisma not only widens formal horizons of art, but strengthens our tiny presence in the world cultural exchange today. 

                                                                                             Svetislav Jovanov 

                                                           (From the "Cage" magazine, Odzaci, October 1993) 
 
 

 

     

 
     ON (SPI)RITUALS               
 
 

       As the most convincing and most authoritative protagonist of immaterial art forms on the contemporary Yugoslav scene, but also as its outstanding theoretician, Andrej Tisma calls his art works "(spi)rituals" – rituals of the spiritual exchange, which means immaterial art intended to be perceived neither though senses (like beaux arts), nor through a mental process (like conceptual art). Instead, it was made for the human spirit, which is a great potential waiting to be awakened, and the author thus elicits at the same time the "material" he uses in his work, the spiritual energy. He considers it a resourceful substance that can be shaped, directed, spread, absorbed, etc, in order to reach an ultimate goal, which is inspiration, the pure sensation of enlightenment and purification, and the touch with the meaning of our existence, and that is the main target of every artwork. The artist has almost been forced to give shape to the "material" he has chosen by processes once used by shamans, artists of the ancient times, that is, through ritual acts which function directly, without any object serving as media, and in that way shorten the communication channel to a great extent. 
     Trying to awaken in people a consciousness of belonging to humankind and everyone's 
mutual dependence ("Love"), putting an accent on the right of individual freedom and equality of races ("Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite 1789-1989" and "Stigmatization"), on the relations between an individual on the one hand, and nature and social environment on the other ("Be Grateful Child to Mother Earth", "43 Cubic Meters of Love",  or "Tisma at Delifrance") or on relations of an individual to another individual ("Street Encounters" and "Spirit Control") as well as on his personal attitude toward centers of power ("Encounter in my Heart"), this artist creates a spiritual space which unifies and crystallizes emotions which are rather general and common than personal, and, in relation to the society, they are not a reflection of the world outside, even to a lesser extent are they an expression of the artist's own consciousness or feeling, but they are, in fact, first of all, catalysts of the collective consciousness. 
      By awakening spirituality in the field of his own existence in space and time, Andrej 
Tisma does not only confirm himself as an artist, but also brings to the surface or reality some 
categories of value buried deep inside every being, which have been - whether we are willing 
to admit it or not – suppressed through time. 

                                                     Luka Salapura
 
                                              (From "Sveske" magazine, no 23, Pancevo, 1995)
 
 
 

 


      NETWORKING,  PERFORMANCES  AND STAMPS 
 

       A keen observer of alternative art on an international level, it is instructive in witnessing the changes in the tone of Andrej Tisma's writings as his country is plunged deep into war, and an economic and cultural embargo imposed on his native Serbia by United Nations. Well traveled (New York, Paris, Stockholm, etc.), and in touch with the international network of postal artists, Tisma was suddenly forced to confront his peacetime position of universal brotherhood, international cooperation, and concerted group action, against a backdrop of increasing hostilities. 
     As Serb refugees flooded into Novi Sad from Bosnia and Croatia fresh from ravages of war, Tisma staged performances for peace and against the embargo on his country. His writings on 
the subject are penetrating observations on the status and persuasiveness of art in wartime 
conditions. In addition to his performances and writings, Tisma has created a strong series of 
carved erasers, which are used on his outgoing correspondence, expressing his life as an artist 
under cultural embargo and wartime conditions. 

                                                                                               John Held, Jr.  

     (Foreword to the catalog of Andrej Tisma's rubber-stamps exhibition, Stamp Art Gallery, 
     San Francisco, 1996) 

 

see also:

Andrej Tisma: Spiritual Sculptor by John Held, Jr.
 

 
      
     RUBBER-STAMP ART 
 

     The impression of an art stamp, created and used by Andrej Tisma, is not only a carrier of artistic value. It is not even its primary character. Many of the stamps made by this artist carry short and concentrated messages of an engaged type, whether the engagement is of an artistic, social, ecological or political nature. 
      Obviously believing that a traditional artistic engagement implies a support of a certain system of governance and that, as such, it loses some of its value in the advancement of awareness, thus becoming a "political servant", Andrej Tisma strives, through provocation and introducing an individual into the art work through action, to take him out of a latent state of impotence. The final objective could be nothing but a "substitute of collective norm by true emancipation" (K. Thomas). 
     The priority in this form of artistic expression is given to the action of making the print of an art stamp. Without this action, the art stamp, at least the kind used by Andrej Tisma, would not have the necessary power that sets it toward the true emancipation of man as one of the most important characteristics of this work of art. 
      The place and context in which the art stamp is printed (the action is taken) tell about the importance of the implementation of the art stamp in the everyday life of man. It should be emphasized that Andrej Tisma never escaped to or took refuge in the autonomy of art. He always moved towards the essence of the problem, trying to influence the awareness of the trends in social development that lead us all, on a local and planetary level alike, to the Apocalypse. 
     Whether we observe Andrej Tisma as a painter, graphic artist. conceptualist, performer or an engaged artist, his art always insists on the awakening of spirituality rather than its exclusivity. 
     Never adopting the retrograde phenomena in the  modern  art  trends,   but rather consequentially following the avant-garde course (risking incomplete understanding and acceptance), Andrej Tisma - with his artistic existence - sounds a warning. Technological development and fast flowing information gradually push man from the center to the margin of life. Humanizing technology by his art and through the network, this artist also influences the humanizing of the civilization. This is exactly why the art stamp, as used by Tisma, is an important and great art. Especially when we bear in mind that the quality of all great art is just this feeling of the artists for their time. 


                                                        Luka Salapura     

                                 (From the  PECArT  show catalog, Novi Sad, 1996)   
 

 
 
 

       
        MAIL ART AND RUBBER-STAMPS 
 

          At the very beginning of mail-art communication, Andrej Tisma, a multimedia artist and critic, joined individual actions and organized them himself. As early as 1973, he appeared for the first time with the stamp as a method of multiplying messages in the above mentioned form of visual communication. Since then, through numerous actions, in the otherwise very dynamic world of mail-art, this author has become really well- known. Not only that: some of his messages have become cult messages (No ism! and some others). They have been reproduced in various forms of print, from textile to badges, stickers, etc., all over the world. He has exhibited his stamps, as multioriginal forms, countless times all over the planet. Recently, a retrospective exhibition of stamp prints was staged in the only gallery in the world that supports and presents this form of art - the San Francisco Stamp Art Gallery. 
         Let us just mention on this occasion some of the other networker acts of Andrej Tisma, such as Antiembargo Art or Fax HeART. Clearly, he is one of the few inhabitants of Novi Sad whose name is recognized in the ranks of visual arts on all continents. 
 

                          Slobodan Vilcek  

                             (“Nezavisni” Novi Sad, May 1996)

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
     RUBBER-STAMP ART  
 
                  THE MAN PUTS HIS SIGNATURE
                  ON EVERYTHING HE TOUCHES
                  Ivan Cankar
      Design of personal communication, as well as the communication itself represents a timeless need of each person to reach out for friendship, for love to enlarge its own world and beat loneliness and isolation. And each and every try is deeply personal and carries the unmistakable signature of its author. 
     The "seals", the sigils of Andrej Tisma, simple, and witty, always carry the message of love, whatever the design of the mark, the seal. The need for a wider, sincere humane relationship, the constant contact over the seemingly wide spaces of land, desert and seas of our small derelict spaceship, EARTH. 
     And contrary to Marshall McLuhan's THE MEDIA IS THE MASSAGE, it's the message itself transformed into the seal squible and by magic, becomes media. By design, by intent. By the endless search for a better word, world of friends, not foes, a world where no man is the WOLF to another man. Because, as the twelfth century Grusian poet Shota Rastelli wrote ages ago:  "Who does not seek friends for himself, is his own enemy." 
 
                                                    Mirko J. Stojnic
                  (From the PECArT show catalog, Novi Sad, 1996)
           
           
 
 
  

        RUBBER-STAMP ART 
 

          At the outset, it can easily be said of Tisma's stamps that they are a kind of sublimation. In other words, they reflect the entire scope of the artist's work as a performer and networker. He has transferred his most important performances and mail-art actions to the stamps, thus continuing to use their agonic energy from one medium to another. 
          By constantly doing intensive research work in various techniques and methods in a number of art forms, “humanizing technology” and insisting on the “awakening of spirituality”, Andrej Tisma has once again introduced himself as a planetary artist, who has already entered the third millennium with his innovative and inspiring work. 

                               Miroljub Todorovic 

                                    (“Politika”, Belgrade, July 1997)

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 


 


 

 

  
        COMPUTER GRAPHICS 
 

          Andrej Tisma is an artist who has for a long time now employed technical achievements and means to serve the purposes of arts and artists, thus giving them a humane dimension. His most recent works have been created by the use of all the potentials offered by computers, scanners, black-and-white printers or state-of-the-art ink-jet color printers. 

           Following up on his previous works, but now relieved from having to cope with the limitations of the earlier technology, Tisma created a series of electro-collages and electro-graphics, which - thanks to the use of hi-tech products - became more communicable. 

           Promulgating his concept that art should not be exclusive, and actively working on the awakening of spirituality, Tisma endows his latest works with a recognizable mark, which is an answer to his own time and a constant protest and warning, on a local as well as global scale. It is not a visual quality one should look for in his works, but rather a message, an action which stimulates man's spirit to stir and make some constructive steps. 

                                                                                           Luka Salapura 

            (Catalogue of the exhibition “Elektrografika”, Cultural center, Nis, October 1997) 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DIGITAL PRINTS

 /EXCERPT/

Since the beginning of the seventies, Andrej Tisma has been a part of the Vojvodinian art scene in a distinct, alternative and nonexclusive way. This artist has expressed his engaged relationship towards everyday life by means that are, themselves, a product of the world and time which he lives and creates in.

Photographs are the main artifacts in his mail-art works, his Xeroxes and electro graphics, his video and computer web-art achievements. In keeping with the desired type of statement, Tisma utilizes photographs as documentary proof of a completed piece of work (actions, performances, records), as a creative gesture by which he expresses his own privacy and artistic personality (a series of Polaroids from the eighties), or he actualizes meaningful, engaging, at all times sarcastic and metaphorically rich conclusions about the current moment of humans of our time, by using found or scanned photographs.

To the article >

Sava Stepanov

("Archeology Of Privacy" essay from the catalog "In My Room", March 2005)

The meanings of Andrej Tisma's works reside and resound in the contrast between the perfection of the advertising image and the reality in which we actually live. Mr. Tisma would like us to be aware that these images exist to convince us to alter our behaviour, i.e., to purchase something which we might not have previously considered purchasing. Or, perhaps, more subtly, to act as yet another in a virtually endless string of such images that, taken in total over our lives, goes a long way toward influencing our thought, and circumscribing the possibilities of our thinking.

The advertiser must create a mythology of sorts, a visual mythology of perfection attainable through the product.  Mr. Tisma undercuts that message by simply contrasting this false fable of fashion with the physical reality of the everyday, thus inserting a much-needed pin in the inflated bubble of our expectations.  The point of his pin seems to be the contrast between the projection of an ideal, timeless, perfect product for consumption, with the everyday reality of decay and imperfection in which we actually live.  Mr. Tisma’s collages thus lead us to discover interesting parallels between Platonic idealism and consumer advertising.

Mr. Tisma reminds us that decay and decomposition is inevitable.  Timeless perfection is a chimera, all we can know is transformation.

And, didn't we know this already anyway? Mr. Tisma's works are here to remind us.

John Byrum

("Pin in the Inflated Bubble of Expectations", Catalog essay "Mental Survival, London, 2006)

 

VIDEO

 /EXCERPT/

Andrej Tisma, one of the leading international contemporary artists, works with a variety of artistic media including video art. The main characteristic of his videos is that they are short and, when seen together, explicitly complex.

Contemporary society and changes in the modern world clearly affect his sensibility and manner of artistic expression. Political and social environments, war, social misery, the changing of social systems, disease, and total chaos of the "new order” have clearly made a marked impression on his video work. The United States, as the global superpower in this “new world order”,  has had a strong influence on Tisma’s videos, and he reacts through them in a spirited style. He depicts with realistic detail, the situation of individuals in the world which are induced by the will of the mightiest.

To the article>

Biljana Mickov

( From the essay "The Satire of Media Lies", 2006

 

WEB.ART 

/EXCERPTS/

Tisma's work acts as a constructive protest, a creative healing process to both the lives of individuals and the sour relations cultivated between rulers and the ruled. 
His work sets a positive example of how communication and creativity provide the means to comment on ones position in the world.   Within these web works the user is an active component reading and untangling the web specific languages whilst watching Tisma's ideas and beliefs unfold. Questions are raised concerning the users own opinions, confronting and challenging their position. In combining language with structure and ideas Tisma has ensured a successful artwork whereby the viewer leaves the piece but retains the message and purpose of it. In this case the ethical principles, an awareness of ones circumstances and the ability to engage with ones social and political environment.                                                                                   To the article >                     Daniel Stringer   ( "Ecological Ethics: Politics and communication in A Tisma's Web.Art", August 2001)

      While the conflict of the former Yugoslavia has made its presence felt on the Internet, it has also led to some  creative artistic endeavors. During the threat of NATO bombing, for instance, artist Andrej Tisma organized an Internet contest for the "humanitarian bombing of Serbia" in which contestants contributed bomb designs.  The winner was awarded with a set of Monica Lewinsky's lips.                       John Horvath   ("Beating Breasts", Heise, Germany, November 7, 1998)  

 
    Andrej Tisma is another virtual friend of mine and we work on couple of web projects together. He is a funny and clever man who can reflect the bitter happy soul of the Balkans. He never lost his sense of 
humor even in war, under the air raid.                     Genco Gulan
    ( "Short Notices about web sites and some useful stuff", NY Arts Magazine, New York, USA, March 2000)

 
   Andrej Tisma of Yugoslavia presents "Famous US Products," which connect US-based multinational corporations such as McDonald's and Coca-Cola with US military adverturism. "American Toys": fictitious toys combine US pop culture with weaponry. His "USA Questionnaire"  puts US military action in historical context, referencing Iraq and Vietnam, and repression of Native Americans. Questionnaire places blame on Madeleine Albright and proposes that she be exterminated. In "Glorious Victory," Andrej Tisma juxtaposes soft pornography with missiles and bombs. 
               Trebor Scholz
      (Carnival in the Eye of the Storm War / Art / New Technologies: KOSOV@ 
      April 2000)

 
    These days I had the chance to see Andrej Tisma' s newest work, "Adult Censored Pics". It is brilliant, as his works usually are. Maybe some will hurry to call it controversial, but I would say it is just realistic and brave. We have passed now the times when "the public opinion" was so easily shocked by any attempt of breaking some decency-laws, artificially imposed. This is what I think the art should do nowadays: to challenge, to break, to destroy prejudices and taboos, to open minds, to  tell and reveal things that might be hidden. 
   I intended to place in the end of this short letter a final warning, something like " if you are hypocrite and  easy to be offended do NOT go to see the work". But then my thought changed and I say now exactly the 
opposite: if you are hypocrite and easy to be offended DO go and see the work. Maybe it will change something in you. 
 
                      Laura Duta   
            ("Adult Censored Pics, or the Censorship as a Weapon" 
            Stop NATO list,  April 15, 2000)
    The United States may not realize up to what extent its image as an imperial power has developed around the world. One of the most alarming pieces inspired by Anti-Americanism that I have experienced online is Andrej Tisma's "American Art School", which consists of a series of photo-stills presenting U.S. American soldiers destroying images of Saddam Hussein. The net project appropriates the photos in order to present U.S. soldiers as conquerors rather than saviors of Iraq.The war with Iraq is obviously a very delicate matter, which consists of so many variables that it would be impossible for me to write a just analysis in this short review. But, one thing that can be sensed in many net projects that spurred around the web as the war with Iraq developed is a sense of anger combined with fear of what a super-power could do around the world. This is the image that the U.S. now has to demistify, and this may prove to be a bigger battle than any other fought up to this point. Andrej Tisma's "American Art School" exposes the ideological global crisis the U.S. faces. Tisma's piece does demonize the United States; and while such extremism exhausts any criticism from Tisma's work, what should be noted is its alarming message: that the U.S. is dealing with a much bigger problem than finding weapons of mass destruction.
    Eduardo Navas
    (Netartreview, June 19, 2003)