Category: Exhibitions
CARTE BLANCHE
LOVE AT LAST SIGHT/MONEY IS ETERNAL AND HUMAN LIFE IS EPHEMERAL
The exhibition of previous laureates of the contrapunct award Vladimir Dodig Trokut & Iva Vraneković – artists to artists, awarded by an Anonymous Philanthropist
26.1.-19.2.2023.
Bačva Gallery
Opening: Thursday, January 26, 7 pm
On Thursday, January 26, 2023, in the Bačva gallery, Home of HDLU (Meštrović Pavilion), at 7 pm, we are opening the exhibition of the laureates of the contrapunct award Vladimir Dodig Trokut & Iva Vraneković – artists to artists, awarded by an Anonymous Philanthropist under the name CARTE BLANCHE / LOVE AT LAST SIGHT/MONEY IS ETERNAL AND HUMAN LIFE IS EPHEMERAL.
The Vladimir Dodig Trokut, Iva Vraneković – artist to artist award was inaugurated in 2016 as a selfless incentive for artistic creativity and financed with private funds from an anonymous donor and philanthropist, in the amount of around EUR 20,000.00 (net) or EUR 25,000.00 (gross), and is institutionalized in the form of an award within the framework of the Youth Salon and Biennial of Painting. The artistic council of the award, which consisted of Nikola Albaneže †, Vladimir Dodig Trokut † / Ivan Posavec, Tomislav Buntak and Anonymous Philanthropist (artist), has awarded a total of 17 awards to by now.
The exhibition LOVE AT LAST SIGHT/MONEY IS ETERNAL AND HUMAN LIFE IS EPHEMERAL presents the current production of the prize laureates, creates the foundations for continued cooperation and encourages the idea of greater involvement of natural persons as donors of fine artists in the public space.
It is also an opportunity for open advocacy to undertake adequate efforts to improve the general atmosphere and the legal and fiscal framework for the development of philanthropy.
In Croatia, natural persons cannot support artists with tax-free philanthropic donations because such receipts are considered second income and are subject to income tax, surtax, health and pension insurance. Thus, based on the example of the Anonymous Philanthropist’s previous contributions, the amount of fiscal contributions paid into the public treasury could be used for as many as 3 donations of around EUR 1,600 and support for prominent artists in need. In addition, there is no fiscal incentive in the form of relief for donations by natural persons for philanthropic purposes.
The same issue occurs with institutional awards to artists, such as the Zagreb Salon, Youth Salon, Biennale of Painting awarded by HDLU through sponsorship funds. Unlike workers who are entitled to a tax-free award for work achievements in the amount of EUR 1,000.00 per year, rare artists, who achieve monetary awards perhaps once in their working life, such an award is taxed as other income. In the last year, HDLU awarded prizes in the amount of 26,000.00 EUR gross and 21,000.00 EUR net within the framework of 3 art manifestations, and the funds it awarded were exclusively sponsored or donated, so not from the public budget. The difference of EUR 5,000, which was the amount of fiscal benefits, would be an extremely encouraging reward for the fine artist, and a negligible deduction to the state budget.
Therefore, it is not surprising that according to the Giving Index (the British organization Charity Aid Foundation (CAF) publishes the results – CAF World Giving Index) Croatia is only in 82nd place.
“The two strongest polarizations that create a synergy of space and time – human life, are certainly love and money, with the fact that homo sapiens did not invent love or decide that it exists, but feels, experiences and interprets it.
As for money, there is a diametrically opposite situation. Man invented money and decided that money exists. It is his deed or misdeed. In the entire system of nature, money does not exist. Nature in this world has a different logic, not to say genius. It is in nature, or more precisely in imposed nature, that man earns and spends money. The genius of nature does not need money to realize the miracle of life, nor does the whole series of cycles that arise from that miracle. We can, and not so hard, agree with the conclusion that man lives for love, but lives for money.
Just as nature needs the sun to live, man needs money to pay the primary costs of his own existence, but also to ensure self-realization beyond the framework of basic needs, which leads to the polarization between essence and existence. Essence equals love, and existence equals money. Well, welcome man to the planet Earth, inhabited by people!
What is philanthropy in Croatia? Is it just a romantic utopia or an achievable reshaping of the current society for a better future for artists and a path to a sustainable cultural system?”
Anonymous Philanthropist
Artists: Grgur Akrap, Lora Elezović, Lucija Jelić, Luka Kušević, Marija Matić, Mak Melcher, Andrea Musa, Pavle Pavlović, Lea Popinjač, Jurica Pušenjak, Josip Rončević, Đuro Seder, Andrej Tomić
Anonymous Philanthropist – Preface
The exhibition remains open until February 19, 2023.
Working hours of the exhibition:
Tue-Sun 11am-7pm
Closed on Mondays and holidays.
24 November 2022
Martina Grlić
Mindscapes
Bačva Gallery (Meštrović pavilion)
November 30 – December 18, 2022
The opening of the exhibition by MARTINA GRLIĆ, MINDSCAPES will be on Wednesday, November 30 at 7pm, in Bačva Gallery, Home of HDLU (Meštrović pavilion).
„Metaphors are all we have to describe memory.[1]“ This is the quote which the artist Martina Grlić came across while reading various texts and it remained in her mind for a long time during the creation of her cycle of paintings “Mindscapes”. Her works are conceptually and aesthetically connected to the previous series Hypermnesia[2] (2021), in which the artist explores the field of memory using the method of introspection and with the use of archival photos from family albums questions the learned ideologies that participate in the formation of consciousness and identity.
(…)
We sense that all the works in the series offer traces of universal ideas and attitudes, but what is characteristic of all of them is that they do not offer answers to complex questions of personal identities and collective experiences. By deliberate transformation of the display, abstract intervention, the artist imitates the passage of time and the impossibility of repeating and seeing the past realistically. In the pop surrealist style of David Lynch, the works exude elusiveness. The relationship between memory and fiction is blurred in a complex way – what Freud calls the uncanny[3] Grlić uses as the main element. With the lack of context, the artist skilfully achieves a feeling of discomfort and anxiety, which is further enhanced by enlarged ultra-lucid fragments that emerge from abstraction and threaten to disintegrate into indeterminacy again.
Referring to a world that no longer exists, the artist in her own words recreates memories that go beyond direct autobiography – her nostalgic works become a reflection of public social attitudes, a set of fantasies and naive superstitions. Although her realities do not necessarily correspond to ours and the present traces of ideas do not have to be interconnected, the artist ultimately expresses herself with a visual language that allows the audience to go deeper into themselves in search of meaning. In this search for meaning, they may get new answers about the world around them.
Tena Bakšaj
[1] ‘Metaphors are all we have to describe memory’: Kristin Prevallet’s ‘A Burning Is Not A Letting Go’ at Guernica https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet-books/2016/05/metaphors-are-all-we-have-to-describe-memory-kristin-prevallets-a-burning-is-not-a-letting-go-at-guernica
[2] The term hypermnesia denotes a state opposite to amnesia, but also a very specific state in which a person describes and recalls individual details from his own memory with incredible accuracy.
[3] There is no unequivocal translation in the Croatian language: unusual, mysterious, creepy, otherworldly, unknown
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
MARTINA GRLIĆ was born in 1982 in Zagreb. She graduated in painting in 2009 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. So far, she has exhibited at 12 independent and more than 20 collective juried exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. Solo exhibitions include: Fragment New York, NYC, USA (2022), Potemka Gallery Leipzig (2019), HDLU Zagreb (2018), Kranjčar Gallery Zagreb (2017), Simulaker Gallery, Novo Mesto (2016), Gallery Poola, Pula (2015), Josip Račić Gallery, Zagreb (2014), Karas Gallery, Zagreb (2013), SC Gallery, Zagreb (2010). Selected group exhibitions: MSU, Zagreb (2017), HDLU Zagreb (2016), National Museum Gdansk, PL (2016). Ningbo Museum of Art, Ningbo, ROC (2015). KIBLA, Maribor, SI (2014), Kunstlerhaus Vienna, A (2011). She is the winner of the HPB award for the best young artist (2017) and the first award of ERSTE Bank “Novi fragmenti 8” (2012). Her works are in the public collections Zuzāns collection, Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga; Erste Bank and the Modern Gallery in Zagreb. She is a member of HDLU and HZSU. She lives and works in Zagreb. From 2021, she is represented by the Fragment gallery from New York and exhibits her works at art fairs (COSMOCOW, NADA Miami).
EXHIBITION WORKING HOURS:
Tuesday – Sunday: 11am – 7pm
Mondays and holidays closed.
Exhibition will be opened until December 18, 2022.
02 September 2022
30 March 2022
Jurica Pušenjak
Heroes
Bačva Gallery (Meštrović pavilion)
April 6-April 10, 2022
The opening of the exhibition by JURICA PUŠENJAK, HEROES will be on Wednesday, April 6 at 7pm, in Bačva Gallery, Home of HDLU (Meštrović pavilion).
“It is still very demanding to deal with World War II in our country. The liberation that came after the war was first romanticized and used as a lever of the socialist state system while (rightly) emphasizing the role of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Due to this, Oslobođenje became associated with the socialist state system and then relativized with its fall. Anti-fascism was thus also relativized, and I do not have to spell out the further consequences of this for you.
Within such a social context at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, the still young painter Jurica Pušenjak began to create his Monument to the Heroes of the National Liberation War, a hybrid work, that is, a painting object. It features 1315 portraits of the holders of the Order of the People’s Hero of Yugoslavia, according to the data from the Anthology of People’s Heroes of Yugoslavia, i.e., its third, complete edition from 1982. The reverse of the Monument is completely black. This colour is associated with the tragic end of numerous people’s heroes during the war, their fate in later society, when they were left to oblivion and their busts were removed from public spaces and their names from institutions. A colour that is, among other things, associated with fascism.
But black is also the colour of the land the partisans trampled and liberated (as the artist himself always points out) and the colour of rebirth. The colour of the fertile soil full of new sprouts and the colour used at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey to mark the origin of the universe. Pusenjak’s Monument pulled the people’s heroes from the soil and oblivion, and I hope this marks a milestone on the path of their revaluation, on the path of the anti-fascist struggle they showed us, a struggle that is, obviously, still going on.
Numerous colourful faces on this work create a pop art-like impression. The People’s Liberation War also had a phase of kitschy, mostly propaganda, interpretations, most often in movies. Such movies, such as The Battle of the Neretva, served as Pušenjak’s inspiration for this work. Someone smart will proudly notice that his concept is just a “simulation of a simulation”. Still, I’m not nearly as smart. The colourful spectacle of the distant war and the darkness into which the war later fell (and from which it was originally born, and from which it will be reborn) are two equal sides of this work. They point to the duality of memory and the split in man and the society that man creates.
There is a reason society chooses to idealize or demonize certain historical figures or events. Collective imagination is what makes a community more stable (provides it with shared values), but also more susceptible to manipulation. Therefore one should constantly undermine the myth of the need for some stability. Put dynamite in the cracks of the concrete construction of the ruling ideology. This meant, at one point, rejecting pathetic and kitschy film spectacles like Kozara, Neretva or Sutjeska and giving precedence to powerful war prose (say, my favourite, Vitomil Zupan). But this also means reaching for their kitsch again, at a time when it can become a weapon of resistance against the system. For nothing, not even society can live in stagnation but only in constant change, and it can overcome its own limitations through change. The vision of the transformation of society offered by this work is cyclical, as emphasized by the double symbolism of black as the colour of death and birth.
Krleža used to say (as evidenced in Matvejević’s Conversations) that no monument should be erected if it is not going to be demolished at least twice. Because truly valid ideas are dangerous for the status quo and the rulers of society. But you do not have to be very smart or brave to demolish monuments – they have been demolished without a problem for millennia. To erect a monument, and especially to erect an old monument anew, takes at least a bit of heroic inspiration. Perhaps Jurica Pušenjak was guided by the spirits of the partisans while painting this work. He was certainly encouraged by David Bowie’s lyrics: “We can be heroes, just for one day.””
Feđa Gavrilović
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Jurica Pušenjak was born in 1996 in Zagreb. After graduating from the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb in 2015, he enrolled in the Painting Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. He graduated in 2020 in the class of Prof. Zoltan Novak with the ALU Academic Council Award for Best Graduate in the academic year 2019-2020. During his studies, he was awarded several times for his work. Since 2018, he has been a part of a series of group exhibitions, notably the 16th Erste Fragments in Lauba, 5th Biennial of Painting, and 6th Biennial of Painting at the Home of HDLU, „Tartaglia Shelves“ in the Forum Gallery (exhibition and co-authorship), and „They Are Leaving“ in the Glyptotheque of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. As part of the 6th Biennial of Painting, he won the Vladimir Dodig Trokut, Iva Vraneković – artists to artists Award. He is a member of HDLU.
EXHIBITION WORKING HOURS:
Wednesday – Friday: 11am – 7pm
Saturday and Sunday 10am – 6pm
Mondays, Tuesdays and holidays closed.
Exhibition will be opened until April 10, 2022.
02 November 2021
NOTICE ON THE RESULTS OF THE international, public, visual arts competition THE VICTIM OF VUKOVAR 1991
INVESTOR AND TENDERER of the competition is:
Ministry of Croatian Veterans’ Affairs, 1 Trg Nevenke Topalušić, 10 000 Zagreb,
OIB (PIN): 95131524528, Phone: 01/2308-833, 01/2308-524, Fax: 01/2308-894
Website: www.branitelji.hr
Person responsible: Tomo Medved, Deputy Prime Minister and Veterans’ Affairs Minister
Institution in charge of ORGANISING and IMPLEMENTING the competition:
Croatian Association of Artists – HDLU (hereinafter: the Implementing Body), 16 Trg žrtava fašizma, 10 000 Zagreb,
OIB (PIN): 89246742324, Tel: 01/ 4611- 818
Website: www.hdlu.hr
Person responsible je: Tomislav Buntak, President
TYPE OF COMPETITION: international, public, in the field of visual arts
SUBJECT AND PURPOSE OF THE COMPETITION:
The aim of the international visual arts competition The Victim of Vukovar 1991 is to establish a dialogue with contemporary art practices based on the culture of memory and symbolism of war suffering of the city of Vukovar and generate artworks that will be inscribed in collective memory. The competition was looking for four new works of art that had never been presented to the public.
EVALUATION AND DECISION-MAKING CRITERIA:
In addition to the compliance of the works with the conditions of the competition (in terms of the content, deadlines and mandatory attachments), when evaluating the works, the Jury considered the following:
- artistic excellence of the work;
- research approach in the context of the culture of remembrance and symbolic value in commemorating historical trauma;
- recognizability and clarity of the artistic expression and media poetics;
- artist’s references.
JURY:
- Branko Franceschi, art historian
- Kristijan Milić, film director
- Božica Dea Matasić, full professor of arts
- Tomislav Buntak, associate professor of arts
- Ana Holjevac Tuković, PhD in History
- Alen Novoselec, associate professor of arts
- Ivanka Bušić, mag.soc.
Advisor:
- Ruža Marić, Director of the Vukovar Municipal Museum
SELECTION:
- A-létheia, sound spatial installation
Artists: Ida Blažičko and Alex Brajković
- Vukovar in Situ, photograph
Artist: Vjeran Hrpka
- Slušatelj (Listener), spatial installation
Artist: Vladimir Novak
- Fragmenti (Fragments), painting
Artist: Stjepan Šandrk
EXHIBITION OF COMPETITION WORKS:
The competition works will be exhibited in the National and University Library, 4 Ul. Hrvatske Bratske Zajednice in Zagreb. The exhibition opening will be held on 17 November 2021.
27 August 2021
Prostoria 10
Home of HDLU (Meštrović Pavilion)
September 25 – October 8, 2021
The exhibition Prostoria 10 marks the 10th anniversary of the well-known international furniture design brand with a strong manufacturing culture – Prostoria and opens its doors on September 25 at the Home of HDLU (Meštrović Pavilion). As an additional exhibition program, a temporary spatial installation “Prostoria Net”, designed by Numen/ForUse is being prepared and will be placed in front of Meštrović pavilion during the exhibition.
Openness to development and change, perseverance, and a spirit of research, guided by the creation of new values, is a continuous process in Prostoria, which has matured into its legacy. This exhibition will present what it is made of, and visitors will have the opportunity to experience the brand itself much deeper. Namely, ten years ago, Prostoria developed from a hall for upholstered furniture in Zagorje into an industrial center for the production of all furniture elements, which goes from one place to public and residential interiors all over the world. The premise of product development in Prostoria is the so-called research-based design. The fact that this brand invests 10% of its annual budget in the segment of research, development and design shows how much importance is attached to the authenticity and quality of products.
Art Direction: Bureau architects. Photo: Marko Mihaljević.
It is important to point out that in a regional historical-geographical context, Prostoria emerged without an industry leader, only to embody it on its own over time. It grew on the ruins of the once numerous Croatian industrial furniture production, defeated in the transition from social ownership of Yugoslavia to capitalism based on competition.
Art Direction: Bureau architects. Photo: Marko Mihaljević.
The exhibition will also present for the first time the photographic project “Revisiting Architecture” by which Prostoria explores the roots of its design in the legacy of modernist Zagreb architecture – the Vatroslav Lisinki Concert Hall, Kockica, the City of Zagreb, and the Zagreb Public University. Namely, few places in the world have such a firmly rooted tradition of modernist architecture as is the case in Zagreb. It is a legacy that is the foundation and inspiration of the product design language Prostoria. “Revisiting Architecture” illustrates how selected products formally or textually refer to the environments in which they are photographed, sometimes emphasizing their origin, and other times their modernity. As a reflection of functional minimalism, Prostoria’s products deeply defined the contemporary Croatian culture of living. It has become an unavoidable inspiration for decorating private and public interiors, and at the same time, a rare design-oriented business leader in Croatia. Prostoria furniture is now available in over 60 countries and 1,000 premium selling spots worldwide.
PRESS CONTACT: Tatjana Bartaković, tbartakovic@prostoria.eu, + 385 99 815 2605
Exhibition opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday: 10 – 21
Saturday – Sunday: 10 am – 6 pm
Exhibition entrance is free of charge.
The exhibition remains open until October 8.
Visita Interiora Terrae: Myth and Alchemy as Art Practice
Prsten Gallery
August 27 – September 16, 2021
Tomislav Buntak, Manolo Cocho, Frnacisco Fernández Taka, Kristian Kožul,
Mia Maraković, Leonardo Martínez, Antonio del Rivera, MarkoTadić
Kustosi: Manolo Cocho, Maja Flajsig and Josip Zanki
The project Visita Interiora Terrae: Myth and Alchemy as Art Practice is based on the works of Croatian and Mexican contemporary artists who question and redefine the ideas of manifestation of the sacred – hierophany. The artworks deal with the fact that an ordinary space can be transcended into a sacred one and that ordinary, material objects can be transformed into works of art. The artists appropriate everyday objects, create new works (or show the existing ones) using the alchemical process of achieving the Philosopher’s Stone. The Stone embodies and transcends the infinite field of time and space, as well as the possibility for the works of art to become or be in simultaneity with the same. Through their work, the artists develop an awareness of material objects, metamorphosis and the forms of transformation of the world of appearances into the world without forms. The project aims to open up the spaces of artistic limitations and expand the field of discussion to the ontological status of objects and events as part of the sacral.
The curators of the project, Manolo Cocho, Maja Flajsig and Josip Zanki, have selected artworks rooted in interdisciplinary research; focused on the issues of establishing a relationship between contemporary art and sacred space, where sacred space is a place that enables the realization of rituals (the process of achieving the Stone) and the experience of reliving myth. The exhibited works touch upon the leitmotif that forms the outline of myth and alchemy, exploring the limits and possibilities of liberation from the positivist mind and the pragmatic world. The project is conceived in two parts, in Zagreb and Mexico City. The first part of the project consists of the eponymous exhibition at the Prsten Gallery of the Croatian Association of Artists from 27 August to 16 September and an academic conference at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb on 2 September 2021. The exhibition will feature the works of Marko Tadić, Kristian Kožul, Mia Maraković, Tomislav Buntak, Manolo Cocho, Francisco Fernández Taka, Leonardo Martínez and Antonio del Rivera. The academic conference will feature the works of Maja Flajsig and Josip Zanki, Miguel Vassallo, Ana Ortiz Sánchez Renero and Rodrigo Fernández de Gortari. The project is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, Centro de las Artes de San Luis Potosí, Kronal, Aurora Co-Lab and Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad.
Visita Interiora Terrae – predgovor – Maja Flajsig i Josip Zanki
MY+H ”vista interiora” – Manolo Choco, Josip Zanki
SUMMER WORKING HOURS PRSTEN GALLERY, BAČVA GALLERY AND PM GALLERY (Home of HDLU)
Tuesday – Sunday: 9am – 12pm / 4pm – 8pm
Mondays and holidays closed.
WORKING HOURS GALLERY KARAS
Wednesday - Friday: 3pm - 8pm h Saturday and Sunday: 10am - 1pm h Mondays, Tuesdays and holidays closedHome of HDLU
Trg žrtava fašizma 16, Zagreb, Map...
T + 385 (0) 1 46 11 818, 46 11 819 F + 385 (0) 1 45 76 831 E-mail: info@hdlu.hr
For all Exibitions in our Galleries right now, please visit EXIBITIONS SECTION ...
Web Hosting
