Party Time Planet
What kind of world is this today? What kind of world do we live in? More or less, we all know the answer. The world is in crisis—recession, widespread bribery and corruption, theft, looting—not just of small individual things but of entire companies, leading ultimately to the plundering of entire states. And this is not just the situation in Croatia; it has spread globally, causing the greatest economic and political crisis since World War II, comparable only to the one that began in 1929 in America.
Artists have no other choice but to respond to the world's crisis, which, of course, also triggers their own social, emotional, mental, and psychological crises. For example, American artists today, especially after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, almost exclusively express anxiety, pessimism, and even disbelief in a brighter future. This is evident in many aspects: numerous photographs of American homeless people are being taken, and sculptor Jackson, for instance, creates a massive installation in which he uses fire to evoke the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima (the piece *"6.8.1945."*).
Even in painting and sculpture, the situation is confusing, reflecting a creative crisis stemming from the broader global crisis. Painting has become a simulation, where numerous painters create various types of paintings, as if, in the words of Hans Sedlmayr, the "center" has been lost. These simulation painters produce abstract, figurative, decorative, geometric, lyrical, achromatic, and coloristic paintings—not as distinct artistic movements, but with each individual artist painting all these styles. There is no longer a singular style; instead, pastiches of all the modernist and avant-garde painting directions prevail (e.g., Philippe Taaffe, Ross Bleckner, Christopher Wool, etc.).
Sculptors, in this state of a lost center, create what American critics call "commodity sculpture"—sculpture for everyday use. The most prominent and highly regarded artists in this category include Jeff Koons, Ashley Bickerton, Haim Steinbach, and Mike McCollum. Essentially, in this atmosphere of pessimism and anxiety caused by the loss of a central artistic direction, American artists use their work to pose questions rather than provide answers. In reality, no definitive answers exist; instead, each viewer is left to interpret the art in their own way.
And what is the situation in Croatia? Artists of all generations create art that, in various ways, manifests as a response to the political, economic, and social crisis. However, truly significant and critically engaged art is rare, as a general state of entropy prevails. It is difficult to live and sustain oneself in an unstable country where small interest groups, clans, and cliques hold power to such an extent that bribery, corruption, and crime reach the very top of the state. However, there are exceptions—artists who overcome this crisis in art through an entirely opposite approach to artistic expression.
One of these artists is the still-young painter Tomislav Ostrman, a doctoral student at the postgraduate art studies program at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb. Ostrman creates irresistibly optimistic, cheerful, witty, and humorous art, which essentially manifests as an escape from the bleak and harsh reality of today. From the very beginning of his artistic career, he conceived and developed his now well-known characters—Sailors and Whistlers.
Whistler (Fućkalica) is a male character who, along with his partner, Žveglica, symbolizes childlike joy, pure love, and soul. As one of Ostrman’s paintings is titled, they represent a possible “Romance”—despite the unheroic times, as Miroslav Krleža and Ivan Meštrović might put it. Žveglica is actually an old Croatian wind instrument, and through this name, Ostrman aims to evoke not just the visual but also the auditory aspect of his sweet utopia—an imagined world of absolute peace, love, and the beauty of human relationships, an idyll of primordial innocence undisturbed by anything. On the other hand, Fućkalica also carries another meaning, familiar to all of us from current events—he is a whistleblower, someone who, out of moral conscience, exposes illegal or even criminal activities within an organization or workplace.
Thus, Whistler (Fućkalica) is positioned as a character representing the moral compass of an individual who points out and fights against social and moral deviations. In Ostrman’s work, this idea is crystal clear and serves as the central concept. However, while this well-defined idea is visually executed in an infantile, relaxed, and innocent style, it also carries a didactic and cautionary function. It strives to create an imagined ideal world where the fundamental human pursuit of Beauty and Goodness—long disrupted, sometimes even destroyed and forgotten—is revived and reconstructed.
Ostrman’s characters resemble those from an animated film or comic book. If he were an animator, his flatly drawn and painted figures—Sailor, Whistler (Fućkalica), and Žveglica—would likely become popular animated characters, seamlessly continuing the great tradition of the *Zagreb School of Animated Film*, which was the world’s most renowned animation school until about twenty years ago. In this way, his Sailors, Whistlers, and Žveglicas could have emerged much like *Professor Balthazar*, Vukotić’s character from *Surogat*, or Kristl’s legendary *Don Quixote*. However, Ostrman’s approach to character creation doesn’t follow that path. He has no intention of doing so. His figures exist solely as motifs in paintings, reliefs, and occasionally in performative acts.
Ostrman hasn’t confined himself solely to painting; he is also interested in a kind of multimedia practice. In fact, he has created additional intriguing characters, such as the white and black Sheep. The white sheep represent the masses—ordinary, naive people who are gullible, harmless, and ultimately foolish, easily manipulated and accepting everything without question. The black sheep, on the other hand, are sarcastic, cynical, intelligent, and wise, symbolizing educated individuals within an imaginary kingdom of universal utopia.
Sometimes, Ostrman also incorporates motifs of a Panda and a Giraffe. The Panda is a troublemaker, an active rebel against everything, while the Giraffe symbolically represents a scholar who oversees the black *Ofce*. Ostrman occasionally inscribes his paintings with text and carefully selects their titles. For instance, the painting *Romantika* has a somewhat enigmatic character. Beneath a checkered tablecloth, a canvas subtly emerges, depicting a palm tree and a ship—hints of a possible, undisturbed paradise. Another painting, titled *Ne bacaj biserje pred svinje* (*Do not cast pearls before swine*), shows a black *Ofca* explaining art and romance to a wild boar.
Ostrman, through the progression of his creative process, follows the logical trajectory of human burnout. He speaks of solitude as the only true state for gradually attaining wisdom, followed by action—constantly emphasizing the importance of art and its noble role in revealing the world as it is, without the pretentious notion that art can change it, as he understands that to be impossible. After action, romance naturally follows—an essential prerequisite for love—ultimately culminating in life as a couple, representing love fulfilled.
No matter how cheerful, optimistic, witty, and humorous Ostrman’s paintings and their charming characters may seem, they actually depict a complete dystopia. And dystopia, in turn, stems from a cynical mind. Ostrman appears to draw inspiration from the brilliant book *Critique of Cynical Reason* by German art and cultural theorist Peter Sloterdijk. This seminal work is a distinctly postmodernist analysis of the state of contemporary society, civilization, and culture, and it itself serves as a reference to Kant’s philosophical treatises—*Critique of Pure Reason*, *Critique of Practical Reason*, and *Critique of Judgment*. Today, it is almost impossible to think about contemporary culture or create art without irony, cynicism, and sarcasm.
However, Ostrman seems to be shouting through his paintings: *Give optimism a chance!* Another key source of his ideas is *Relational Aesthetics*, a book by the influential French theorist Nicolas Bourriaud. This book explores the relationships between institutions that make up the life cycle of artworks, art, and artists, moving within a cycle of artwork/artist – galleries and museums (exhibition spaces) – critic – audience – collections, both social and private. Bourriaud highlights many globally relevant artists who owe their significance to their participation in this cycle. In this context, and according to his understanding, a new aesthetic emerges, as if the author is proclaiming that life itself should be lived as a work of art.
Analogously, painter Ostrman, through his sweet utopias, invents his own *party time* planet—a planet of *Fućkalicas* who shout: *Be happy, embrace your inner child, make silly faces, play, party!* And the best way to achieve all of this is through art. These are all elements of an initiation—one that, through and by means of art, grants entry into the *planet of Fućkalicas*. This planet is a metaphor for a positive, optimistic, bright, innocent, and pure state of mind—an elevated spirit.
The party on the *Sailor and Fućkalica* planet is, at its core, a call to establish and uphold an ideal society—one that stands in direct contrast to the world, society, and prevailing negative state of mind that dominate today's reality. At his essence, man is defined as *homo ludens* (the playing man), a concept extensively explored by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga throughout the history of civilization. Ostrman urges us never to forget that we are *homo ludensi*—that we should always ease life's hardships by embracing the playful spirit we carry deep within us.
On a symbolic level, Ostrman treats his *Žveglice* and *Žlaburače* in a highly concrete semiotic manner. *Žveglice* take the form of a lighthouse, representing a woman as a safe harbor, while *Žlaburača* resembles a windmill, embodying a mustached woman who constantly nags—an adversary against whom Don Quixote battles, though, of course, in vain.
Ostrman’s painting is predominantly a painting of flat surfaces. He never engages in perspective representation of spatial coordinates, which is why his compositions resemble vignettes or emblematic signs. All of this leads us to the conclusion that his painting manifests as Kundera’s *"The Unbearable Lightness of Being."* His work moves in this direction precisely because he sees painting as a way to dull the sharp edge of a brutal everyday reality.
His painting can actually be described as *vaudeville painting*, a term coined by his mentor in doctoral studies, painter Prof. Igor Rončević. *Vaudeville* is a French word referring to a long tradition of stage performances blending operetta, comedy, circus acts, magic tricks, pantomime, dance, recitals, poetry, singing, and more. The most famous among them are the legendary *Crazy Horse*, *Moulin Rouge*, and *Lido* in Paris. These vaudeville shows are essentially cabarets, but they are not just light entertainment for idle audiences. Instead, they are carefully scripted and directed performances that explore various aspects of the *homo ludens* within us. Always carrying a lesson—sometimes even a bitter one—they serve as a form of catharsis, helping to ease the burdens of everyday life. They do so without pretense, following an easygoing and playful artistic approach.
However, Ostrman grounds his vaudeville painting in extremely simple yet skillfully harmonized visual components—circular, semicircular, quarter-circle, triangular, rectangular, or striped forms—which always carry a certain existential riddle beneath the surface. Everything happening in his paintings operates on the level of questioning the human condition, the universally human, in the here and now.
Critics have already recognized the originality and authenticity of Ostrman’s artistic expression, and he has even exhibited in the U.S., proving that his work holds weight on an international level. A key aspect of his artistic practice is the tendency to brand his already highly recognizable characters—Mornars, Fućkalicas, Žveglicas, Žlaburačas, White and Black Sheep, as well as Pandas and Giraffes—since they have simply become the trademark of Ostrman’s artistic identity.
As such, they deserve to be institutionalized and contextualized within the main currents of contemporary Croatian art, with the aim of elevating them to a universal level of global recognition. What else remains for the Party Planet but to venture out into the world, conquer its own domain, and become a globally recognized trademark of a profoundly personal and distinct artistic vision?
