METAL GURU
Art Fraction of Labin Art Express (L.A.E.) founded in 1993 by Dean Zahtila, Massimo Savić and Krešimir Farkaš († 1999), engaged primarily in music, described by some critics as "electro body" or "industrial" , but also producing its own video works, performances, installations and conceptual art.
After Krešimir's death, Metal Guru temporarily abandoned music activities, until 2002 when actress and performer Xena L.Zupanic joined the group.
Since 1993 Metal Guru has realised numerous multimedia works, released two CDs and dozens of music video works, exhibited and performed all over Europe (Laibach, Amsterdam, Graz, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Marseille, Bregenz, Vienna, Brussels...), participating in some leading European cultural events (Cultural Capital of Europe - 1994, 1996, 2000; EXPO'98, etc).
Using SOCIAL SCULPTURING (link) method - choosing as artistic material (instead of iron, stone, clay or similar) a certain society, human beings - Metal Guru is willing to exclude the need for an art work-piece-object as a form of artistic expression and to establish art as a life form/life style.
Group is presently working on a long-term art project HERO XXI - conception and birth of a child-god-artist, Hero of the 21st Century, and establishment of the "Underground City XXI" in the former coal mine tunnels below Labin in Croatia.
Rebellious and subversive character of an artistic work, naturally un-placeable with a limits, conventions, morality and modern society is the very basis of Metal Guru's creativity today. By refusing to accept "picture" of life as an equation: "art=apotheosis of life", MG continues to fight against "false and miserable reality", which is humiliating (for) the people. For MG, art has very precise role in the life of all people, of all ages, under all circumstances, and therefore only an artwork is perfect and eternal, "absolute = divine".
