The title of the central exhibition at this Biennale is "Future, Present, Past 1967-1997". Germano Celant, the curator of the 47th Biennale, has decided on an apparently benign chronological inversion, yet one that behind and within itself hides the abandonment of the fascination with "youth". Celant believes that the concept of "youth" is not and should not be considered in relation to the age of the artist but in relation to "the contribution to the language of art". In context "youth" can be understood as innovation.

I must admit that my primary intention was not to fit into the general Biennale concept by all means but that my inner fore-choice of Dalibor Martinis (as a category of my private, intuitive "arte mia" relationship) began to correspond on more than one level with the central theme of Biennale.
Martinis fits in even chronologically as he realised his first exhibition on 1969. For four decades now, this author has constantly contributed to "the language of art" - from defining the artistic linguistic structure of the new media, by the simulacra of the narrative structures to the latest works in which he produces the "virtual reality".

The Ariadne's thread of Martinis' work on the whole has been the examination of the inter-relationship between the media and the surroundings, the surroundings which I understand as the totality of the social (artistic, cultural, scientific, economic ...), ideological and political context. Therefore, Martinis' youth (innovativity) should not be in dispute.

Dalibor Martinis' exhibition entitled "Observatorium" that will represent Croatia at the Venice Biennale is based on the author's conviction that electronic image is not an apparent but a constitutional part of the physical world. In that sense he is reinterpreting Leonardo's sentence "Not one solid object is lighter than the air" from Leicester Codex in 1510, saying "Not one solid object is lighter than its image". Using this interpretation I have tried to express the complexity of Martinis' work in the following sentence: "Not one expression is heavier than its meaning".

The space in which Dalibor Martinis works will be exhibited has been chosen as the one that will be used for them only, namely as the space that will complement these works and possibly establish the dialogue with them.

Berislav Valusek,

Croatian Commissioner