EXHIBITION: MARIJA ANČIĆ – TRAPS

30 May 2018

MARIJA ANČIĆ
Traps
Karas Gallery
June 5 – June 17, 2018

Opening of the exhibition: Tuesday, June 5 at 7pm at the Karas Gallery

Exhibition Traps, by Marija Ančić will be opened on Tuesday, June 5 at 7pm at the Karas Gallery (Zvonimirova 58).

“In my work, I deal with personal issues, my own problems and the question of identity. I try to express negative emotions: fear, anxiety, lack of confidence, etc. through drawings or animation – GIF. GIF is an interesting medium because its main feature is the infinite repetition – the loop, and the states I’m talking about are also running in circles, in repeated cycles. In addition, GIF is a format that is present in modern communication because it transmits emotions quickly and easily. In that I recognized a medium for reflection and exploration. So I take one action and animate it to form a loop. The endless repetition at first glance makes this frightening and morbid act absurd, giving it a humorous aspect. These actions are exaggerated and overdramatic, as I try to illustrate this elusive moment of fear, which is terrible and paralyzing at one moment, and already funny in the next. At the same time this repetition turns act into a state, my characters exist in these impossible and permanent spaces and somehow persist, survive.

The trap is, in it’s nature, a catching and capturing device, whether it is a hidden trap, bait, or a fraud, the victim does not know that it fell into it until it is too late. My traps are exaggerated caricatures like traps from cartoons, movies and pop culture (a huge bear trap, a secret door in the floor and muck) and they represent the feeling of anxiety, insecurity, imprisonment, alienation. The effect created by the loop is a surreal situation in which the character is in the trap forever, without the possibility to get out of it, however, it is aware of the traps and its dangers and successfully avoids it. The trap is in a similar position because despite the infinite attempts, it fails to fulfill its function. The trap and the character reached a stalemate, an unusual symbiosis.”

Marija Ančić

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Marija Ančić was born in Sarajevo. She graduated Conservation-Restoration from Academy of Arts in Split, in 2005 and Sculpture in 2010. Besides four solo exhibitions, she participated on different group exhibitions and festivals in Croatia and abroad. She was the finalist of Radoslav Putar Award in 2016. She lives and works in Zagreb.

Karas Gallery program is financially supported by The Croatian Association of Visual Artists (HDLU).

Working hours:

Wednesday and Friday: 9am to 3pm | Thursday: 3pm to 7pm | Saturday and Sunday: 9am to 12am
Mondays, Tuesdays and holidays: closed.

The exhibition will remain open until June 17, 2018

OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION: 34TH YOUTH SALON – PANOPTICON

17 May 2018

Opening, May 24, 2018, at 7pm (Home of HDLU)

The 34^th YOUTH SALON – PANOPTICON, developed around the concept by Mirna Rul, will open on Thursday, May 24, 2018, at 7.00 PM in the Home of Croatian Fine Artists on Trg žrtava fašizma 16.

The exhibition will remain open until June 26, 2018.

We prepared rich side program at the opening as well as music (from 20:30) performed by Martina Gucić (Mapalma), a producer and DJ from Zagreb.

She is a DJ and producer from Zagreb making beats since 2010. She has performed with Cakes da Killa, Palmistry and Elysiu Crampton; her mixes could be heard on popular NTS Radio (for Classical Trax) and Rinse FM (for MAJIA radio). She has also made one of the first mixers for the SISTER collective. She defined her recognizable sound on a debut EP, released at the end of 2017 for the Vienna label Ashida Park. Her “Nightcap” EP could be described, in the widest sense, as an experimental club music inspired by grime, r&b, baile funk, dancehall, ballroom and reggaeton.

https://soundcloud.com/mapalma

http://smarturl.it/nightcap

More about the concept of 34th Youth Salon read here.

SIDE PROGRAM

24.5.2018. 12:00 (Galerija Šira, Preradovićeva 13, Zagreb)

Opening of the exhibition Venientes – those to come

25.5. Reli po galerijama 17:00 / 17:30

exhibition tour with the curator of the Salon, Mirna Rul

5.6. 2018. 18:00 (Club HDLU)

lecture by Tihana Puc – Youth Salon Cartography: award-winning Artists Network

In the Club HDLU, for the entire duration of the Salon, you can see the interactive installation Youth Salon Cartography: award-winning Artists Network – a continuous project of collecting data about female and male artists who were awarded between 1968 and 2016 at the Youth Salon, and is visualized as a network, enabling remote reading of the Youth Salon and exploring the way artists are connected and shared through time and institutional space.

Concept: Tihana Puc

Visualization and Technical Performance: Mihael Giba

8.6. 2018. 18:00 (Club HDLU)

talk with Beti Žerovc: Is art just for privileged ones?

12.6. 2018. 18:00 (Club HDLU)

round table organized by Institut za povijest umjetnosti* – 50 Years of Youth Salon

head of the round table: Ivana Mance

*as part of the 150th anniversary of HDLU

15.6.2018. 18:00

exhibition tour with the curator of the Salon, Mirna Rul*

*as part of Zagreb Design District Festival

20.6. 2018. 18:00 (Club HDLU)

discussion panel Big Data and the Art world

head of panel discussion: Lena Disopra

20.6. 2018. 19:00 (MSU, Avenija Dubrovnik 17, Zagreb)

Opening of the solo exhibition Time Capsule, by Miran Šabić, winner of the MSU prize at the last Youth Salon. The exhibition remains open until July, 11 2018.

26.6.2018. 18:00

Catalogue promotion and awards ceremony.

TICKETS:

20 kn citizens

10 kn students and retirees

10 kn groups (over 5 persons, fare per person)

10 kn for regular members of: ULUPUH, HDD, UHA, ORIS, HULU Split, HDLU Osijek, HDLU Rijeka, HDLU Dubrovnik, HDLU Istra, HDLU Varaždin, upon presentation of valid documents.

Free for regular members of Croatian Association of Artists, AICA, ICOM, Croatian Society of Art Historians and Croatian Journalists’ Association, as well as the students of the Academy of Fine Arts and Art History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, upon presentation of valid documents.

Tickets are sold at the Croatian Association of Artists box office, during the opening hours of the exhibition.

For further inquiries regarding the tickets, please contact hdlu@hdlu.hr.

WORKING HOURS:

Wednesday to Friday: 11.00 AM – 7.00 PM

Saturday and Sunday: 10.00 AM – 18.00 PM

Closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and holidays (May, 31 and June, 22).

Exhibition: Difference Engine XI – ALTERN_ATORS

11 April 2018

Difference Engine XI
ALTERN_ATORS
Bačva Gallery
April 19 – May 6, 2018

The eleventh edition of the travelling exhibition Difference Engine XI – ALTERN_ATORS by the Irish art collective of the same name, will open on Thursday, 19 April, 2018 at 7pm at the Bačva Gallery of the Croatian Association of Artists (HDLU).

EXHIBITION: MARTINA GRLIĆ – MEMORY AND CONFLICT

28 March 2018

MARTINA GRLIĆ
Memory and conflict
Karas Gallery
April 4 – April 15, 2018

Opening of the exhibition: Wednesday, April 4 at 7pm at the Karas Gallery

Exhibition Memory and conflict, by Martina Grlić, the winner of the HBP Award for Young Artists at the 4th Biennial of Painting last year, will be opened on Wednesday, April 4 at 7pm at the Karas Gallery (Zvonimirova 58).

A series of paintings by Martina Grlić titled Memorija i konflikt [Memory and Conflict] comprises two groups of works that are connected both by their theme and by the manner in which they explore the medium. The first group includes paintings created on the basis of archival footage from the last Day of Youth in 1987 (1) (the polyptych Lice iz gomile [A Face from the Crowd] and Vatromet [Fireworks], 2018). The second group consists of works based on archival footage showing the President of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Vođa [Leader], 2018), his wife Jovanka Broz (Prva dama [First Lady], 2018) and ideological memorabilia; wreaths and medals that mark the space and time of socialist utopia (Vijenac [Wreath], 2018 and Ordenje [Medals], 2018). (…)

(…) For seven more years after having been relocated to the starry crevice, the complex strategical situation of Josip Broz Tito (the power) exercised its power using symbols, commemorative festivities and inscriptions of memories and remembrance into time and space. In her series Memorija i konflikt [Memory and Conflict], the artist does not deify that time and space, but in fact shows the complete iconography of one of the potential cultures of memory. Martina Grlić acts as an artist-ethnographer,(2) recording and transforming fragments of past times that are more and more disappearing in the virtual society. In our interview she emphasised that she liked the finite nature of photography (factography) and the possibility to radically alter it through a painting. The fact that she imitates photography, as does Gerhard Richter, using a medium (painting) that is older than photography (3) is just another piece of the mosaic in her examination of the past. Within it, one can simultaneously gaze upon the starry sky and stand in a queue for a holiday- novella at Makhinjauri.

(From catalogue preface, written by Josip Zanki, PhD)

(1) The Day of Youth was a commemorative festivity from the era of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which commemorated the birthday of the lifetime president Josip Broz Tito (1892 – 1980). It also continued after his death.
(2) Cf. Foster, Hal “The Artist as Ethnographer”. In: Foster, Hal The Return of the Real. MIT Press, Cambridge MA 1996
(3) Cf. Belting, Hans An Anthropology of Images. Picture, Medium, Body. Princeton University Press, Princeton, Oxford, 2011, p. 31

Preface

About the artist

Supported by:

Working hours:

Wednesday and Friday: 9am to 3pm | Thursday: 3pm to 7pm | Saturday and Sunday: 9am to 12am
Mondays, Tuesdays and holidays: closed.

The exhibition will remain open until April 15, 2018

EXHIBITION: MIHAEL PUNTARIĆ – PAINTINGS IN SPACE

14 March 2018

MIHAEL PUNTARIĆ
Paintings in space
Karas Gallery
March 20 – March 31, 2018

Opening of the exhibition: Tuesday, March 20 at 7pm at the Karas Gallery

Exhibition Paintings in space, by Mihael Puntarić will open on Tuesday, March 20 at 7pm at the Karas Gallery (Zvonimirova 58).

(…) In his most recent work of art, Mihael Puntarić has broken entirely free from all content, context, and even expression. In the true sense of minimal art, the author strives towards the affirmation of paintings as art objects by consciously aligning with the work of authors such as Malevič, Reinhardt or the artists gathered within New Tendencies, and their comprehension of art. In this case, Mihael Puntarić practices a highly material manner of painting, i.e. constructing an art object – one that rules out symbolic and referential dimensions of painting. (…)

(…) The deliberation of reductionism present in the work of Puntarić has enabled him to deconstruct the painting as an art object, thereby generating an extension of the established approach to displaying art. His Paintings in Space invite us to stop before the said paintings/objects while bringing into question the two dimensions of a painting and the three dimensions of a sculpture exhibited in the gallery space. (…) As interpreted by Puntarić, art is materialized through conscious and consistent reduction to its fundamental constituents. All the while, his distancing from emotion and from the risk of entrapment by pathos, aims to accomplish the exact opposite – the author’s attainment of the essential conclusions reached by his predecessors in order to explore the possibility, like the ones before him, to raise new questions in art about art.

(From catalogue preface, written by Petra Šlosel)

Preface

About the artist

Supported by:

Working hours:

Wednesday and Friday: 9am to 3pm | Thursday: 3pm to 7pm | Saturday and Sunday: 9am to 12am
Mondays, Tuesdays and holidays: closed.

The exhibition will remain open until March 31, 2018

OPENING of Miriam Ferstl photo exhibition

02 October 2017

MIRIAM FERSTL

Divine light

Photography exhibition

Home of the Croatian Photography

4– 29 October 2017.

Opening: Wed, 4 October 2017. at 6 p.m.

With Divine light exhibition young German photographer Miriam Ferstl presents herself for the first time to the Zagreb public. The exhibition is the result of her field work on the islands Brač, Korčula, Vis and Hvar last year, whose center of interest are church chandeliers and candlesticks photographed from the frog perspective. Ferstl wants to encourage the observer to watch the everyday details such as often neglected and imperceptible objects from the church inventory in a completely different way: not only to take a deeper look of the surface of the objects, but also to observe it with spiritual eyes. Church candlesticks seen through Ferstl`s photographic lenses are much more then richly decorated and lavishly painted objects. They are also carriers of ancient, archaic vibrations of prayers, songs and island melodies, echoes of local stories and memories that symbolically link heaven and earth, divine and human, eternal and decaying. No candlesticks are equal, but each one is equally perfect in its own geometric regularity, symmetry, beauty and energy. Ordinary metal and glass objects on photographs reflect harmony of the spiritual center of all things, encouraging public to investigate divine under the shallowness of this world and find the light that is inside and around us. Artfully designed chandeliers have their own special attraction, which is mainly due to their richness in forms and their festive staging of the light. The concentric construction also gives them a universal symbolism and strong symbolic power. The orderly interlocking of unity and diversity can be seen especially impressively when viewed vertically from below. This is the perspective Miriam Ferstl takes when photographing the chandeliers in the Dalmatian island churches. From this perspective, the chandeliers correspond in a lively manner in a symmetrical, almost kaleidoscopic interplay of light, colors, and forms with the architecture of the church spaces. It is clear that the structure of the chandeliers is based on natural forms, as manifested in the branching of a tree, in the unfolding of a flower, or in the fragile structure of snow crystals, and not at least our idea of the order of the universe. Focusing on qualities such as the perspective change and its sensual and spiritual dimensions is the central concern of this project.

Biography:

The Munich based artist Miriam Maria Ferstl (30) studied theatre, media and German literature at the University of Bayreuth. With her work it is a matter to her to open up the eyes and hearts of the recipients for new perspectives and ideas. After working several years in the dramaturgical department of playhouse Bochum, as an dramaturg, script author and producer in the film production company Construction Film, as an editor and film maker at Bavarian broadcasting and Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen and as an actress, moderator and author on various projects, she now focuses on her interests in the fine arts. After exhibiting her project „Divine Light“ in Munich (Galerie ANAÏS), on the islands of Hvar and Brač and in Galerija Umjetnina in Split, it will now be showcased at HDLU in Zagreb.