13th organ vida: creeps and butterflies

At the end of 2022, when 'goblin mode' overwhelmingly triumphed in Oxford Dictionary’s selection of the word of the year, we wondered what would follow: would it stand for an empty gesture that normalizes self-indulgent and defeatist behavior, or could it rather come to represent a punkish disobedience – aestheticized, but still politically charged articulation of dissatisfaction? The term went viral that same year, playing a key role in the fake news account of a celebrity breakup involving rapper Kanye West (now known as Ye) and soon-to-be fashion icon Julia Fox. While post-breakup Ye kept lingering in his now-signature 'dark mode' behavior, Fox's newly adopted goblin state led her to embody a distinctive expression of discontent, to become the face of a fresh take on contemporary beauty—the latest iteration of the aesthetics of ugliness.

The ugly seemed to have seeped into every pore of visual culture. The messy, raw, and the hideous slowly pushed out sleek looks and polished images. BeReal’s ‘genuine glimpses’ seriously threatened the reign of the Instagram face. The weirdos took center stage. We embraced smudges. Dirt. Alien vibes. Welcomed ugly ducklings. Killjoys. Chaos. Everything macabre. Opened doors to 'bad beauties’, 'trashy girls’ and ‘creepy cuties’. 'Feral girl summers' and 'anarchist femme baking'. All the strangely defiant micro-trends. The Y2K, in general. Goblin mode came to represent a somewhat grotesque, yet poignant rejection of perfectionism, both in relation to bodies and visual culture. It emerged as a way of seeing, but also as a mode of being — an unfiltered response to spiritual nihilism triggered by the current state of global affairs, by the imminence of the world falling apart, evidently much sooner than we expected.

This year, Organ Vida is all about these odd disobediences. Micro-rebellions, gut reactions, instincts, intense yearnings and bizarre obsessions — the weirdly visceral. We are interested in images that incite repulsion, but also fascination, that give us both creeps and butterflies. We are looking for those unafraid of getting dirty, those that joyously mess with mainstream beauty ideals, societal norms, or art conventions. Those that try to make sense of the chaotic world we live in, in the most unusual ways — that delve into parody, fantasy, or camp. We hope to find those that have bad taste or manners. Those that might seem dark but are also funny or cute. Stunning, even. Because in the right light, as Fox would say, 'everything, even the ugly, is nothing short of breathtaking'.

Organ Vida invites artists from all over the world who work with image-based practices. We are open to mediums such as photography and video, but also hybrid practices that consider images in relation to sound, sculpture, or spatial expansion, such as installations or performances. We accept either finished projects, or projects in a stage of development, as long as they are ready for public presentation on the planned exhibition date.

We are looking for projects responding to the given topic: Creeps and Butterflies.

The selected artists will exhibit their work at the main curated exhibition during the 13th Organ Vida Festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, opening on September 26th, 2024.