Leo Katunarić Kadele (LK2), is a visual artist and author. Educated as a theater director (Drama Academy Zagreb Croatia), he develops polyphonic artistic practice by constantly expanding in the media and forms. He is the author of numerous contemporary art projects in Japan, China, India, Colombia, the United States, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Syria, South Korea, Greece, and Croatia. He is the creator of both theater and multidisciplinary theater projects in which he regularly connects machine and human performance interfaces. He is also active as a scientist in the field of analysis of new dramaturgies of contemporary digital art performances (Phd 2021). He has participated and exhibited at professional conferences in Israel, China, Serbia, Austria, and Croatia. He is socially active as the founder and leader of festivals, institutions, and platforms for the development of contemporary art (KantunArt, MaxArtFest, Zkm Zagreb). He collaborates as a curator, selector, and artist with numerous international institutions, from the Iberoamericano Festival Bogota Colombia, Tokas Japan, National Museum Beijing China, Oldenburg University Germany, Music Bienalle and Mimara Museum Zagreb Croatia, Museum of the contemporary art Zagreb Croatia. He is the author of numerous scientific texts in the field of contemporary art and performance in digital culture, chairman of the "Media and Philosophy" symposium, and published author: “Artistic performance in the digital culture" Leykam international Zagreb 2022., "Medea95" University of Genova Italy, 2000, "The return of Europe, a cow" Plima Zagreb 2007. Born in Split, Croatia 1965. Works and lives in Zagreb, Croatia. (https://www.lk2.org/) 2023. / 2024. Paxos Biennale, Greece. Our hope: Unstable gods! Bremen / Berlin, Germany. Mit Kunst zum Kant. Croatia. Sveucilisna galerija Split: Production of a childhood. Croatia. Dubrovnik – Sponza Palace. Mysterium Crucis. 2022. South Korea, Seoul. Pasa festival: Unstable gods, erase us, please! Museum of the contemporary art Zagreb, Croatia: Arrival of unstable gods! ArtZg & Art Histories, Zagreb, Croatia: Melancholy of data. 2021. Croatia. Zagreb. Museum of the contemporary art: Machine loves you_give us your data 2020. Germany, Oldenburg. Carl von Ossietzky University, BKGE: Facebook Immanuel Kant. 2019. China, Xi’an Museum of Fine Arts. Touching the screen may create a life sequence inside. 2018. China. Shenzhen. Dafen International Biennale. Italy, Rome. Artrooms. Digital family. Colombia, Bogota / Medellin and Croatia, Zagreb. Disappearing / Desaparecido / Killing the artist. 2017. China, Beijing. 7th Beijing Biennial. Croatia, Zagreb. Ht contemporary art award. Museum of contemporary art. 2016. Croatia, Zagreb. “I am a spaceman, not a refugee!” MaxArtFest. Croatia, Vukovar. “The re-death machines” 2015. Croatia, Zagreb. Cyber Faust. Croatia, Zagreb. The fall of the house of Sony. 2014. Croatia, Zagreb. MaxArtFest. Hamlet is not dead! Post punk opera. 2013. Japan. Tottori. Art Hospitale Project. Constructing a re-death machine. Japan. Hiroshima. Cancellation project. Croatia, Zagreb. Return of Europe. 2012. Colombia, Bogota. Iberoamericano festival. Killing the artist. Colombia. Bogota. “Minuto de Dios” Museum of Contemporary Art. One / Zero. 2011. Croatia, Zagreb. MaxArtFest. Altar of illusions, data art / machine language translation. 2010. India. New Delhi. Varanasi. Dharamshala. Hardwar. A map to lose yourself. Syria. Damascus. AllArtNow Festival. Rooms of the strength 2. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sarajevo. Mess Festival and IPC Gallery. Forbidden theater. 2009. Japan. Tokyo. Tokyo Wonder Site. Power rooms. Croatia, Zagreb. Mimara Museum and Music Biennale. Repentance. 2008. Colombia, Bogota. Museum of Art / National University of Colombia. Art is War! Croatia, Zagreb. MaxArtFest. An artist, not a criminal. 2007. Croatia, Zagreb. VN Gallery. Excommunicated / Immanuel Kant Facebook. Croatia, Zagreb. KC Peščenica and Knap. East equal West. 2006. Italy. Rome. Gallery “Teatro India”. War Ballet. Croatia, Rijeka. Safety Instructions. 2005. Germany, Berlin. Machinehaus. Japan, Kobe / Osaka. Hyogo International - Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art. 2000. – 2005. Mexico, Mexico City / Guajanato. Guanajuato festival. Colombia, Bogota. Iberoamericano festival. Desaparecido LeoK / Introduction. Croatia, Zagreb. Museum of Modern Art. Other people's dreams. USA, New York – USIA.
This is indeed a repeat of a period that I remember well. Before the beginning of the wars in the Balkans in 1991 (and soon also the Gulf and other wars), the trend of global mass media culture equally conveyed to everyone in the world the feeling of the storm reigning in the networks of human relations and all social activities. Now, in 2024, digital culture circulates not only images but also meanings without hierarchies. And war increasingly occupies a place reserved for thinking about freedom. Never has a radical artistic breakthrough into public discourse and the discourse of opinion been more necessary than in such times. Freedom is perhaps just to do everything, absolutely everything, that we can so that the defeat of humanity does not happen. At least not without such a terrible cry that the victory of the tyrant becomes miserable. I deliberately create artificial social situations to collect data in a pop-up ritual. The method is identical to every previous phase of human civilization. Only the form is different, in line with the current trend of mass digitization. The artistic as purposefulness without a purpose, an emotion that is unknown to the machine, and to scientific analysis only represents action and reaction, becomes energy. In Tokyo, Japan I attack the mighty Google for injustice done to the historical caste of untouchables by re-mapping. In Varanasi, India, at the Marnikamika ghat of the river Ganges, where those who wish to end the cycle of existence are burned, I undergo self-immolation. In Berlin, Germany I participate in the Wasserschlaght war where I establish the first digital observation performance station. In Bogotá, Colombia, I record the disappearance of artists. In India, Dharamshala, I sit between Buddhist priests, dressed in a neat European business suit. In New York, USA, I encourage Occupy Wall Street to the final act of the May Day parade. In Zagreb, Croatia, I led the demonstrations of men dressed as mothers from Mayo Square who are looking for absentees from the Balkan wars. Such information is used in negotiations between human and machine intelligence. The result of the negotiations are non-objects made by human hands, but whose meaning fluctuates through space and time. We turn to rational, scientific discourses to overcome crises, wars, diseases or injustices. Rational solutions turn into ideologies with the promise of solving the crisis by following certain procedures and rules. But to maintain themselves, ideologies create spectacles and other irrational interfaces, up to self-regulating violence. Then people turn to supernatural constructions, move the solution from physical reality to the elusive one. It is a logical consequence of the state in which human civilization finds itself. A constant state of high tension has been going on since the secret police of the pseudo-socialist state arrested me for writing graffiti. I was a thirteen-year-old child. At night, I wrote on the walls the names of the painters Tiziano, Tintoretto, as well as Jesus Christ Superstar and Woodstock. They judged me as an adult. I also had to scrape off all the graffiti. I saved the shavings and the writing tool and made objects from them. I exhibited them in the biggest museums of Europe, at the Biennale and Documenta, illegally, along with the works of the most popular artists, traveling by hitchhiking. High tension is my natural state from which I transform data into visualizations like icons. I create portals through which we pray for volcanic energies and explosive events that we have rejected from our space/time. That's why I negotiate with the machine gods in order to open portals for the arrival of the posthuman (Zagreb, Croatia, Museum of the contemporary art 2022). and at religious gatherings of millions I create a temporary prophet (India Khumb Mhela 2009), I create artificial political situations and constructed social hierarchies (Iberoamericano festival Bogota, Colombia 2000 - 2019), I persuade world leaders to accept unstable gods (South Korea, Japan, China, U.S.A. 2023). Instead of conquering the center from the edge like everyone else, I'm constantly looking for conflict. Otherwise, it's banal to me. The only hope is that we are without fate.
(cro) Neprestano stanje visoke napetosti traje od kada me je tajna policija pseudo socijalističke države uhapsila zbog pisanja grafita. Bio sam trinaestogodišnje dijete. Noću sam pisao po zidovima imena slikara Tiziano, Tintoretto, kao i Jesus Christ Superstar i Woodstock. Sudili su me kao odrasloga. Morao sam i ostrugati sve grafite. Strugotine i alat za pisanje sam sačuvao i od njih napravio objekte. Njih sam izlagao po najvećim muzejima Europe, na Bienalu i Documenti, ilegalno, uz radove najpopularnijih umjetnika, putujući autostopom. Visoka napetost je moje prirodno stanje iz kojeg podatke preoblikujem u vizualizacije kao ikone. Kreiram portale pomoću kojih molimo za vulkanskim energijama i eksplozivnim događanjima koje smo odbacili iz našeg prostor/vremena. Zato pregovaram sa strojnim bogovima kako bi otvorio portale za dolazak posthumanog (Zagreb, Croatia, Museum of the contemporary art 2022.) Sudjelujem u balkanskim ratovima zbunjujućim konceptima lebdećeg oružja (1991. - 1992.), a na vjerskim okupljanjima milona stvaram privremenog proroka (Indija Khumb Mhela 2009.), kreiram umjetne političke situacije i konstruirane društvene hijerarhije (Iberoamericano festival Bogota, Colombia 2000. - 2019.), nagovaram svjetske vođe da prihvate nestabilne bogove (Južna Korea, Japan, Kina, U.S.A. 2023.). Umjesto da s ruba osvojim srediste kao i svi drugi, ja stalno tražim konflikt. Inače mi je banalno. Jedina nada je da smo bez sudbine.