ARCHIVE · 2018
Tomo Gusić
LOOKING BACK, TWO-FOLD / a retrospective exhibition
Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik
18 December 2018 – 10 March 2019
exhibition curators and text authors: Prof. Antun Karaman, PhD, Assist. Prof. Marija Tonković, PhD
Stradun, 2000, oil on canvas
The paintings of Tomo Gusić – Within the Silences of Selfhood
Antun Karaman
STILL LIFE In the prolific production of paintings dealing with the subject of still life, a complex with characteristic content stands out – the portrayals of various types of shellfish and seafood (garfish, oysters, mussels, sea urchins), which do not merely represent the symbols of life in the sea and by the sea, and/or the synonyms for good food, but have already imposed, i.e. affirmed themselves as an ever-interesting motif that is in fact timeless and universal, as a motif that, regardless of the time and place of its creation, can serve as an excellent template to the artist who painted it, enabling him to enter into a dialogue with the period in which he lives and works.
THE CITY In the overall consciousness of the world, in the minds of the passers-by or chance visitors, as well as in the dreams and imagination of the admirers of all its faces and all of its mysteries, Dubrovnik always gleams and shines as the City, as a phenomenon and as a concept, and to the people of Dubrovnik (and Gusić is one of them), their Dubrovnik is often and much more than all of that.
To the artists, the City represents both a splendid motif and an enchanted mirror (with the inevitable traps of mimesis) in which it is not always easy to find one’s way. At the same time, it serves as an inexhaustible source of inspiration to them, a mirror image of real values and a magical gateway to the worlds behind the apparent state of things, a doorway to imagination and dreams, which, in many ways, encourages the artists (as well as all of us – the other, ordinary people) and directs them positively, but also sometimes limits them in an unwelcome manner.
Gusić knows this all too well. He definitely feels all of the virtues, flaws and seductive qualities of the City's appeal, but is sufficiently strong and capable, both mentally and creatively, of resisting its opulent challenges and facing the City in its enchanted mirror without any fear. Gusić evaluates the City in the right way – he worships it, but also looks at it in his own way. After all, the City has not been far away from him, both during his childhood and presently, neither spiritually nor physically; it is constantly on his mind and in his sight, he can almost touch it with his hand. In the morning, when he opens his bedroom window or goes out into the small garden in front of the house, the northern town walls, the beautiful Minčeta Tower, the solidly built forts of St Barbara, St Catherine, Drezvenik and St Jacob, regardless of whether they are lit by the already-risen sun or caught in the rain, cheerfully wish him a good morning, every single time.
The direct contact with the vistas of the walls and the dreams of the City immerses Gusić in his own dreams and stories: from his elevated perspective he curiously observes the walls and peeks behind them; sometimes rising to the heights, flying with the birds and looking down on the City from above, from the zenith, experiencing it in its idealized, emblematic layout, and then landing into the complex simplicity of the narrow city streets and into the harmony of uniform blocks of townhouses; and in this restless kaleidoscope of street stairways, house façades, rooftops, and proud-standing belfries, he awakens and nurtures his soul.
STRADUN, THE MAIN STREET OF DUBROVNIK By repeatedly painting Stradun and its numerous faces, Gusić presents not only his artistic credo, his spiritual preoccupation and painting process, but also his reflections on the dynamics of life and the world, and all of his psychological, emotional, philosophical and poetical and artistic opinions and attitudes. In every “portrait” of Stradun he actually “portrays” himself and his own artistic universe, pointing out his inventio in which the topos of Stradun becomes much more than a theme of the painter’s life and his paintings that he holds dear, and much more than the main street, the beating heart of Dubrovnik. Here, in Gusić's interpretation, Stradun, or rather the various paintings of Stradun, become a gold mine of information, a repository of arguments, and a means of identifying the repeatedly affirmed creative upswings and the true nobility of the human spirit and actions, as well as interpersonal relationships and relationships in general.
THE PROCESSION In painting the paintings containing the motif of a procession, of which there are quite a few, Gusić is presented with the opportunity to bring himself even closer to (his known) self. Likewise, he reveals an artist who successfully equilibrates between two disparate phenomena: at times he is a very accurate observer, inclined to giving realistic accounts and producing in-depth analyses of either the details or the entire complex, whereas at other times he gives himself freely to the enjoyable freedom of playing and the accelerated rhythms of action and colors, thereby coming close to syntheses, stylization and, almost, abstraction.
Procession, 2002, oil on canvas
THE GARDEN In view of the content and the descriptiveness of details in the paintings containing the motif of a garden, Gusić is somewhat more inclined to mimesis and more solid forms than when he is painting still life or Stradun. But in terms of the psychological-experiential aspect and the painting process, his intent is always the same or similar. The nostalgic edge, the sadness due to transience, the persuasiveness of the atmosphere and the ambience, the noble consonance of colouring, the smooth permeation of tones, the steady ductus and the ease of painting all give these paintings an aura composed of almost contradictory emotions – the merriment and joy of living and the existential anxiety permeated by melancholy and Watteau-like restrained poetics.
Terrace, 2005, oil on canvas
THE PORTRAIT Each of the painted portraits contains a particularity and an original specificity, whether in the choice of coloring characteristics, the calmness/restlessness of the ductus or in the structural formation of the composition.
THE NUDE FIGURE The body is also an expression and a mirror image of the human soul. Gusić's nude figures primarily emit a noticeable anxiety, uncontrollable melancholy, despondency, self-abnegation and the insecurity of youth, and thus the suppression, and closing-off to the challenges of the outside world, as well as true worry over the uncertainties and entrapments of life; subsequently followed by the awareness of one’s newly discovered, newly burgeoned and/or already thriving maturity or sexuality and of the (suppressed, latent) sensuality that are, whether they want to or not, laid before the altar of men's (sometimes unattainable) desires.
Applied art in the illustrations and graphic design by Tomo Gusić
Marija Tonković
Making a living solely from the painting was never an easy or simple task, in any given time period. In connection with his opus as a painter, all of the biographies of Tomislav (Tomo) Gusić mention only his diploma and specialization year at the Academy of Fine Arts, in the class of Oton Postružnik. Fortunately, at the time of his studies, great attention was paid to the mastering of graphic skills and techniques as well. The founder of Croatian design, posters and book design, Tomislav Krizman, taught him during the first two years. After his retirement, Frano Baće took over these subjects, and, continuing in Krizman's tradition, insisted on lettering style and typography, nurturing and maintaining the high quality of the art of “sign painting”.
During the sixties and seventies of the last century, the demands of rare clients, namely the official organizations of the political system, had to be met, so his works reflect the social, cultural and political circumstances. Printing capabilities were much less developed than nowadays. Publishers often decided upon the technique that the illustrators could use, so the books of that period were often illustrated only by line drawings. In the editions of individual works, the limits of visual originality were strictly set, to the benefit of the common, pre-determined and recognizable identity of the edition.
In this environment, like many notable Croatian painters, Tomo Gusić also started working in different fields of applied graphic arts. He designed newspaper editions (Telegram, Smib), made posters, designed and illustrated books, and also designed the overall visual identity for individual clients. He intensively worked on illustrations for children's literature, ranging from simple flat monochrome drawings in India ink to the complex painting compositions. The relationship with the text is complementary: the text and the picture complement each other.
In his first book, Alica u zemlji čudesa (Alice in Wonderland) (1964), which saw twelve editions, he attempted to conform to the visual perception of little readers. His feather drawings are made up of lines with differing intensity – from the completely thin to the striking ones, from short strokes to the ones transforming into blots, imitating children's drawings. Gusić's engagement soon expanded to the design of the entire book, including the cover page, endpapers, and illustrations. The visual representation became dominant and was realized by utilizing a combination of different techniques: decalcomania, collage, ranging from airy watercolor paintings to the saturated and completely paint-covered surfaces (Društvo nečistih (The Society of the Unclean), 1969). The picture occupies the largest part of the sheet surface, intertwining itself with the text both visually and semantically, in various styles and genres of children's illustration (Zebre lete na jug (Zebras Fly South), 1981). On the covers, he subtly organized the semantic data, as well as the typographic and visual elements (Uvijek netko nekog voli (There Is Always Someone Loving Someone), 1986). The illustrations in which he completely dissolved the painting palette are wrapped around the songs, encapsulating them in multiple dialogues and in perfect synergy with their textuality (Ledomat tata (The Ice Maker Dad), 1985).
In the design of posters, logos, and catalogue design, Gusić’s work reflects the tradition of the international graphic style. He portrays the synthesis of the vital forces in relation to the art of geometric aesthetics which, in the 1970s, became the general lexis of the spirit of that age. Gusić's posters and logos for the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Sebastian Gallery, Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall and Atlas Travel Agency further and develop the design-related orthogonal tendency of Croatian graphic design. It could also be stated that it serves to conclude, in the outlines, the general line of Exit morphology.
Poster for the Carneval fest in Cavtat, 1977
Gusić identifies characteristic features that he transposes into effective symbols, combining them with modern typography. As for the individual occasions, his work is less constrained, with emphasis on the pictorial, while maintaining the efficiency and purity of textual information. This selection of Gusić's works in the area of applied graphic arts serves to incorporate his highly valued opus into the history of Croatian design.
BIOGRAPHY:
Tomo Gusić /born 1931/, after his elementary and secondary education in Dubrovnik, enrolled in the architectural course at the Engineering Faculty in Zagreb. In 1953 he passed the entrance exam to the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, also signing up for the painting course of Oton Postružnik. He took his BFA in 1957, and completed post-graduate work in 1959. In 1960 he returned to Dubrovnik, going back again to Zagreb in 1963, where he took part from time to time in the collective exhibitions of the Fine Artists’ Association, also practicing the business of graphic design; in addition, he worked as art director for the publisher Školska knjiga. In 1981 he left Zagreb, and has ever since lived in Dubrovnik.
JASENKO RASOL
POLITICAL SCHOOL / DYSTOPIA / PALE IMAGE
Duration: 22.11.2018.-20.1.2019.
Curator: Petra Golušić
Concept: Jasenko Rasol
Political School Series, 2017, digital colour photography - inkjet printout, 100 x 150 cm
The human being. Pain. Death. Life. nothing - code of the absolute spirit. This, and other things, the exhibition states with its universal vocabulary. Rasol's work is part of the world process of peace, freedom, justice and so on. Three series of digital colour photographs are on show: Political School (2017), Dystopia (2016) and Pale Image (2018), with twenty-one frames that are part of wholes and a separate erotics of a cold, sensitive, powerful and wise aesthetic. There is nothing wanting, nothing superfluous; in them, the wasteland is written with the system of shots of pared-down scenes of the abandoned and the rejected. Territory and theory and personal style and so on of the contemporary Croatian artist are close as in many authors of the history and present of photography and so on.
Petra Golušić
Political School Series, 2017, digital colour photography - inkjet printout, 100 x 150 cm
BIOGRAPHY:
Jasenko Rasol was born in Zagreb in 1969. Since beginning his career in photography, he has been working as an independent cameraman and photographer. Many photography monographs have been published about Rasol’s works: Silba, August 1994 (Jasenko Rasol, Zagreb, 1995), Irma (Meandar, Zagreb, 2003), Covered (Meandar / Scaner Studio, Zagreb, 2004), Photo souvenirs (Meandar, Zagreb, 2009.) and Winter Gardens (Meandar Media, Zagreb, 2011.). Rasol started exhibiting his works at the beginning of the 1990’s and has since been featured in many solo and group shows in Croatia and abroad. He currently works and lives in Zagreb.
ARTWORKS FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALUMINIJ MOSTAR FACTORY
13. 11. – 12. 12. 2018.
Curator: Željko Marciuš
As part of Aluminij d. d., Aluminij Gallery in Mostar has been continuously promoting visual culture and polyvalent worlds of art since 2000. By presenting about fifty works from the Gallery’s collection at the Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, from the period of protomodern, modern and postmodern visualism, Mostar intertwines the worlds of two institutions: the economic one and the cultural one, which arose from it, with the common goal of revaluation – on this occasion, as selected by the authors of these lines – of some of the best works from the holdings of the collection.
Nenad Vorih
Art penetrates all segments of the human being. Art is a form of work – and likewise, work is the formation of art. Therefore, the diligence, pride, and care exhibited by Darko Juka, the collection’s custodian-caretaker and exhibition promoter, who displays and portrays the assortment of collective poetics within the factory and gallery space to the curious observer with an uncommon measure of pride, fervour, and enthusiasm. Such attitude intuitively indicates just how much art affects the spiritual growth, determination, and identity of man, which is something that everyone who conceded to the power of the art of photography, painting, drawings, graphics, and sculpture knows very well.
IDA BLAŽIČKO
TRACES OF TIME
Duration: 17.10.-12.12.2018.
Curator: Rozana Vojvoda
The gentile vegetal structures of Ida Blažičko made of textile that young Zagreb sculptress is showing in the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik suggest immateriality, fragility, and ephemerality; they are transparent, soft and supple, and yet amazingly stable and resistant, indivisible from the space to which they are adapted and with which they enter into a dialogue. We have to do here, naturally, with ambient sculpture / spatial installation that is at a formal and structural level inseparable from its housing, not complete without the background story, sculpture that starts its production during the first meeting of the artist and selected location.
BIOGRAPHY:
Born in Zagreb, Croatia (1985). Lives and works in Hangzhou and Zagreb. Member of Croatian Association of Artists (HDLU) and Croatian Freelance Artists' Association (HZSU).
EDUCATION
2016 Ph.D. in Sculpture, University of Zagreb, Academy of Fine Arts, Croatia
2012 Ph.D. in Art in Public Space, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China
2008-2009 China Academy of Art International College, Mandarin language, Chinese history and culture
2006 Studio Art, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA
2007 MFA in Sculpture, Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb, Croatia
2003 Classical Gymnasium, Zagreb, Croatia
HONORS AND AWARDS
Premio in Sesto Award / In Sesto Sculpture Prize, Italy (2016)
China Academy of Art Award (2012)
China Academy of Art International College Award (2012)
Academy of Fine Arts Award, Zagreb, Croatia (2007)
Honor from Council of Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb, Croatia (2007)
Nominee for Rectors Award, University of Zagreb, Croatia (2007)
Honor from Council of Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb, Croatia (2006)
Dean Honorary List, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, USA (2006)
Nominee for the Essl Award, Vienna, Austria (2006)
Honor from Council of Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb, Croatia (2005)
EXHIBITIONS
2019
Sebastian String Quartet, Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, upcoming
Space Between, CEKAO Gallery, POU Zagreb, Croatia
2018 Traces of Time, Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, Croatia
Icaros, Forum Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
XIII Triennial of Croatian Sculpture, Glyptotheque HAZU, Zagreb, Croatia;
CONTEXTILE 2018 Contemporary Textile Art Biennial, Guimarães, Portugal
2017
Nikola Tesla – Mind from the Future, Sky Through the Leaves, Mestrovic Pavilion, Zagreb, Croatia
Winner of the Premio in Sesto, Fondazione Ado Furlan, curated by Giada Centazzo, Pordenone, Italy
Sky Through the Leaves, Museum Brdovec, Brdovec, Croatia
Blossoms, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France
Blossoms, with pianist Kaoru Tashiro, Royal Depot, Bruxelles, Belgium
Winter Garden, Library of Marija J. Zagorka in Zagreb, Croatia
Laub, Zagreb Design Week, Lauba, Zagreb, Croatia
Blossoms, Slatki gusti, Zrinjevac square, Zagreb, Croatia
Premio in Sesto 2016 | In Sesto Sculpture Prize 2016, curated by Giorgia Gastaldon, Antiche Carceri, San Vito al Tagliamento, Pordenone, Italy
Haptic, ZILIK Gallery, Karlovac, Croatia
Performance site, city-making, Oktogon Passage, Zagreb, Croatia
7th Croatian Triennale of Aquarelle, Vjekoslav Karas Gallery, Karlovac; Art Gallery of Slavonski Brod, Croatia
2015
Whiteness, K10 Gallery, Varazdin
XII Triennial of Croatian Sculpture, Glyptotheque HAZU, Zagreb, Croatia
Conquering, Overcoming, and Permeation, Library of Marija J. Zagorka in Zagreb, Croatia
Topology of Infinity - Contemporary Artists in the Permanent Collection of MUO, Museum of Arts and Crafts, Zagreb, Croatia
Ida Blazicko, Combustion Gallery, Zadar, Croatia
Zeit der Harmonie, CONTRA Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
2014
Croatian Ceramics in Ireland, IAC 2014 Dublin, Ireland
17th International Exhibition of Miniatures, Vrsilnica, Novi Dvori, Croatia
2013
Voice of Art Sculpture Biennale, Henan, China
6th Croatian Triennial of Aquarelle, Vjekoslav Karas Gallery, Karlovac, Art gallery of the City of Slavonski Brod
7th Biennial of Aquarelle, Razvid Gallery, Zapresic, Croatia
2012
DISPLACE: Rethinking a Forgotten Place, Phoenix Creative Garden, Hangzhou, China
Gazing Between Water and Land, 4th West Lake International Sculpture Exhibition, Xixi
Wetland National Park, Hangzhou, China
Awarded graduate students of CAA, China Academy of Art Gallery, Hangzhou, China
Hidden Garden, Dushikuaibao Art Center Hangzhou, China
All Art Under the Sun, China Academy of Art Gallery, Hangzhou, China
2011
Urban Art Towards Ecological Civilization, Changfeng Visual Art Gallery, Shanghai, China
1st China South Taihu International Public Artworks Exhibition, Huzhou, China
Invisible Landscape, Fangxiang Art Center, Hangzhou, China
20 years of Razvid Gallery, Zapresic, Croatia
2010
All Art Under the Sun, China Academy of Art Gallery, Hangzhou
Colors for Daily Life, KIC ART CENTER, Musung ART, Shanghai
Seven Dreams, Fangxiang Art Center, Hangzhou, China
10th Croatian Triennial: Memorial of Ivo Kerdic, Gallery of Fine Arts, Osijek, Croatia
5th Croatian Triennial of Aquarelle, Vjekoslav Karas Gallery, Karlovac, Croatia
2009
Boy, Ideal Town Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
Introspection, Razvid Gallery, Zapresic, Croatia
Hello Hangzhou, Cleptic Image Gallery, Hangzhou, China
2008
ULUPUH Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
Croatian Passion Heritage, Mimara Museum, Zagreb, Croatia
Petal, Botanical Garden, Zagreb, Croatia
2007
Awarded graduate students of ALU, Galurija, Zagreb, Croatia
9th Croatian Triennial: Memorial of Ivo Kerdic, Gallery of Fine Arts, Osijek, Croatia
Essl Award- finale, Glyptotheque HAZU, Zagreb, Croatia
2006
2nd International OUTVIDEO CONTEST, Ekaterinburg, Russia
MILAGROS/MIRACLE, Miller Gallery, Indiana, PA, USA
Inter(Aktiv), Gallery SC, Zagreb, Croatia
Passion heritage, Gallery Kristofor Stankovic, Zagreb, Croatia
Art installation, Bundek Lake, Zagreb, Croatia
2005
Passion heritage, Gallery Kristofor Stankovic, Zagreb, Croatia
International University Eights Regatta, Zagreb, Croatia
Culture Fair, SC Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
2004
Passion heritage, Gallery Kristofor Stankovic, Zagreb, Croatia
Sculpture workshop Kuterevo, Kuterevo, Croatia
International workshop HGK Luzern, ELIA congress, Switzerland
2003
Ceramics and sculpture art colony Plemenitas, Croatia
COLLECTIONS
2018
Wave, indoor sculpture, Ado Furlan Foundation Collection, Pordenone, Italy
2017
Deep silence - the shrill of cicadas seeps into rocks, outdoor sculpture, City of San Vito al Tagliamento, Italy
2015
Genius loci, indoor sculpture, Arena Center, Zagreb, Croatia
Topology of Infinity, indoor sculpture, Museum of Arts and Crafts (MUO), Zagreb, Croatia
2012
Wind II, outdoor sculpture, City of Hangzhou, China
2011
Wind, outdoor sculpture, City of Shanghai, China
VATROSLAV KULIŠ
THE DIONYSIAN REALM
9.10.2018.-4.11.2018.
Curator: Milan Bešlić, Feđa Gavrilović, Marin Ivanović
HERBARIUM PICTORIUM, 2006, acrylic, chalk and oil crayon on canvas, 124 x 164 cm
The role of the Modern Movement in the visual arts was always to disrupt and to rebel. In a perhaps slightly secretive way this strikes me as what is going on in Kulis’s work. The impulse to be disruptive paradoxically binds together the different things that he chooses to do. One of the pleasures of looking at what he does is the way in which it – almost secretively – surprises you. You think you’ve got it all sorted out, Then the moment comes, and it shifts unobtrusively, and turns into something else.
Edward Lucie-Smith
MELBOURNE, 2007, acrylic, chalk, and pastel on canvas, 88 x 120 cm
His aim is not only to discover, but also to subjugate the light, which is not only illuminating, but is also the source of all things (since Rimbaud was Catholic, for him it was ‘divine light’), and to instrumentalise, that is, to skillfully use this metaphysical structure. The artist becomes the creator of the world and its laws, the creator of beauty and his own system that values this beauty. Modernism marked the triumph of the individual, which offered the art with unprecedented freedoms that have been generously used and abused to the present day.
Feđa Gavrilović
METAMORPHOSES OF THE SEA, 2000, oil on canvas, 120 x 88 cm
In the Croatian contemporary art Kuliš’s work has been a significant component which has been recognized by the critics for its exceptional aesthetic achievements and distinctive author’s features; thus we can say that in the modern multimedia context his art has been a reference artistic point for identifying the medium of painting in an elaborated painting procedure with Kuliš’s clear signature. This particular value of Kuliš’s art is specially emphasized by the fact that it is recognized as the artistic value not only by the critics but also through the social atmosphere including wider cultural audience and considerable media coverage.
Milan Bešlić
WAVE, 1991, oil on canvas, 200 x 300 cm
Biography:
Vatroslav Kulis was born in 1951. He graduated from the School of Applied Arts in Zagreb in 1971. and went on to study art at the Fine Arts Academy in Zagreb earning his degree in 1976. For a time he worked at the Miroslav Krleza Lexicographic Institute as art editor for the Universal Encyclopaedia and the Croatian Biographical Lexicon. After that he mostly works as an independent artist.
Kulis was a member of theatre troupe ”The Histrions” for a time, and has designed a number of stage sets for the Comedy Theatre, the Zagreb Puppet Theatre and Croatian National Theatre, all in Zagreb.
He is the author of several print portfolios and has illustrated many books. Religious subjects make up an important segment in his output (mosaics, Calvary subjects, other thematic works) for churches in Metković, Klobuk, Čitluk, Široki brijeg and Melbourne.
He has made study trips to the USA, Australia, France, Germany, Italy and Austria.
Vatroslav Kulis is the winner of several national awards and prizes in the arts, among others the Marko Marulic Award (1997), the annual Vladimir Nazor Award (2000), the Forum Gallery Award (2003), the Life Achievement Award of the City of Metković (2015) and Award of the City of Zagreb (2018).
He has exhibited at about 150 individual and over 130 collective exhibitions at home and abroad.
His works may be found in museums, galleries and in many private collections in Croatia and abroad. 
VOODOO GUTENBERG, 1996, wood, book, photo, nails, wax, 47 x 61 x 19 cm
Marin Radica (Forgotten Historian Sculptor)
Galery Dulcic Masle Pulitika
Duration: 6.10. – 18.11.2018.
Author: Vinicije Lupis
Anđeo podupiratelj s propovjedaonice iz katedrale Gospe Velike, 1897., Dubrovnik
Nacrt oltara za župnu crkvu na Lopudu, kraj 19. st., Arhiv Dubrovačke biskupije, zbirka crteža, snimio Antun Koncul
PHOTOS FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART DUBROVNIK
Location: Gallery Dulcic Masle Pulitika
Duration: 3.8.-30.9.2018.
Curator: Rozana Vojvoda
Mladen Tudor, Pariz, 1971.
ARTISTS:
Mara Bratoš, Marko Ercegović, Damir Fabijanić, Robert Farber, Steve McCurry, Ana Opalić, Mladen Tudor, Pavo Urban
Pavo Urban, Posljednji snimci, 1991.
Steve McCurry, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, 2005
Football in Croatian Painting
13. 6. – 8. 7. 2018.
Curator: Milan Bešlić
In the period of one month, from June 13th to July 8th, in the Dulcic Masle Pulitika Gallery all interested will be able to see 25 works of 17 Croatian painters: from classics of Ivo Dulcic, Ljubo Babic and Omer Mujadzic to contemporary authors such as Tomislav Buntak, Boris Svaljek, Boris Bucan, Josko Eterovic and Grgur Akrap.
Tomislav Buntak, Nogomet pred vratima Novog Jeruzalema
It is widely accepted that football is the most popular sport worldwide, or – as the media calls it – “planetary sport”. It is therefore not surprising that competitions are held on all meridians and parallels, at different intervals, in various forms and consisting of different groups and principles, ranging from European to world championships. Likewise, it should be recalled that football is a sport that has been recorded throughout history in different cultures.
Marin Ivanović has recognized the values expressed in the artistic language of Croatian painters that we would like to represent by exhibiting their works in the premises of the Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik and presenting them to the Croatian cultural audience as well as to numerous visitors from all over the world that will be visiting the City beneath Srđ mountain during the summer. Of course, the exhibition is thematically linked to the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Moscow, so it is also putting wind in the football’s sails – not the football in Moscow, but the football taking place in Dubrovnik in the works of Croatian artists.
OCEANS. IMAGINING A TIDALECTIC WORLDVIEW
4.7. – 30.9.2018
Curator: Stefanie Hessler with the assistance of Jelena Tamindžija
The exhibition Oceans is an experiment in formulating an oceanic worldview, a different way of engaging with the oceans and the world we inhabit. Unbound by land-based modes of thinking and living, it is reflective of the rhythmic fluidity of water and the incessant swelling and receding of the tides.
Steffanie Hessler
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Newell Harry: Untitled (Objects and Anagrams for R.U. & R.U. (Part II), 2015.
...like the movement of the ocean she’s walking on, coming from one continent/continuum, touching another, and then receding ('reading') from the island(s) into the perhaps creative chaos of the(ir) future...
Kamau Brathwaite
Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary is a private art foundation established in 2002 chairwoman Francesca von Habsburg (born Thyssen-Bornemisza). The foundation both upholds an ongoing institutional legacy and at the same time sets itself apart through a very distinct, unique and challenging set of institutional practices. TBA21 continues the Thyssen-Bornemisza’s family legacy and has built a collection assembling positions of contemporary art from all over the globe.
Susanne M. Winterling: Glistening Troubles, 2017.
Taking its title from a play on words by the celebrated Barbadian poet-historian Kamau Braithwaite, Tidalectics seeks to comprehend our histories as trajectories tossed by waves, from ocean crossings to systems of exchange, myths, and microbial origins. The exhibition will highlight processes of cultural adaptation and material change, presenting a rich framework for understanding the coalescing polarities of contemporaneity and history, science and poetics, routes and roots, and ourselves—mostly land-dwelling humans—with the oceans and their many and diverse inhabitants.
IVONA VLAŠIĆ: Line of the Cancelled Horizon
15.5. – 24.6.2018
Curator: Petra Golušić
Ivona Vlašić: SOMEWHERE BETWEEN Series, 2010 - 2012 _ 2017 - 2018, acrylic on canvas
It's all simple deep in the essence of the overall idiom of Ivona Vlašić, as it all actually is. Expounded in the Line of the Cancelled Horizon is the deep and acute insight from which it was made, recorded and created. What can be seen and not seen at the exhibition, heard and not heard? Death | life | line of the cancelled horizon.
Petra Golušić
Ivona Vlašić: I AM ASHAMED, 2017, video, 00'46''
Ivona Vlašić was born in Dubrovnik in 1968. She studied painting in the master class of Gerhard Lojen at the Höhere technische Bundeslehranstalt Graz Ortweinschule – Meisterklasse Malerei. She works within the multimedia form of expression. She is a member of Croatian Association of Freelance Artists in Zagreb, Lazareti Art Workshop in Dubrovnik, the Croatian Fine Artists' Association, Dubrovnik and the Zagreb section of the Croatian Fine Artists' Association. She has shown her work at numerous solo and collective exhibitions and other event in Croatia and abroad. She lives and works in Dubrovnik.
Ivona Vlašić, HORIZONS Series, 2012 - on, HORIZONS, 2016, video, 01'30''
The horizon | line of appearance joins | separates and so on the surface of the Earth and the universe | the unknown; it is possible to see everything that is closer than it and not what is behind it. Whether clear or unclear, it is there to be read in the work of this artist, even when it is not there – it always exists metaphysically; as it does in the sound and the words of the work.
Ivona Vlašić: UNDER THE SURFACE, 2017, video
Vlašić thinks through the errors of the establishment of the basic values necessary for the survival of everyone and everything. Are the original, vital spaces being done away with? Why is the absolute spirit being done away with when sensory reality can become and be its?
Artworks from the Donation by Anton Cetín to the Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik
10. 5. – 27. 5. 2018.
Curator: Milan Bešlić
The productive and versatile visual arts opus of Anton Cetín is well known on the Croatian visual art scene. Likewise, the reception of his work is exceptional outside the national context as well. In emphasizing this trait of the said painter, we are trying to point to the facts on which this statement is grounded.
Milan Bešlić
Anton Cetín: THINKING ABOUT OTHER - WORLDLY PLACE I, 1996, acrylic on canvas
Anton Cetín was born in the village of Bojana near Čazma, Croatia. He attended the School of Applied Arts in Zagreb. From 1959 to 1964 he studied printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, where he graduated in the class of professor Marijan Detoni. During his time in Zagreb he worked as an illustrator for a number of publishing firms before moving to Paris where he lived from 1966 to 1968, working for well-known illustrator J. M. Rabec and publisher Larousse. He then moved to Canada, now his permanent home, where he works as a professional painter and printmaker. He has received several awards and honours for his work. Canadian Croatian Artist Society chose him Artist of the Year for 1986. In 1995 he received from the Government of Croatia two honours: The Order of Croatian Danica (Morning Star) with the image of Marko Marulić and The Order of the The Croatian Interlace for special merits in art.
Anton Cetín: THINKING ABOUT OTHER - WORLDLY PLACE III, 2000, acrylic on canvas
Anton Cetín is an artist with an idiosyncratic approach to painting and refined aesthetics. In the surrealist connotations of his painting we find the fragile figures of women, birds, houses, interstellar constructs and others. The female image, later assuming the name of Eve, often accompanied by a bird, constitutes an iconographic motif and metaphorical image that we find as a thread drawn through his entire oeuvre and as his inexhaustible thematic inspiration of the female aspect, fertility and love.
MARKO ERCEGOVIĆ
I Am Showing / Where We Live
Location: Gallery Dulcic Masle Pulitika & Studio Pulitika
Duration: 7.4.2018. - 6.5.2018.
Curator: Rozana Vojvoda
Marko Ercegović, Title Dubrovnik, 2003, 90 x 90 cm
The solo exhibition by Marko Ercegović, a Dubrovnik photographer with a Zagreb address, includes a selection from his earlier photographic series’ which is united under the title I Am Showing (Enchanted, Two in the Bush, Small Changes, Ding...), and the series Where We Live from 2015. A distinct feature of Ercegović’s photography is the delicateness of a captured scene of everyday life that is manifested in fragments, as well as use of the unusual ambivalent positioning of the observer versus a narrative discourse of photography.
Marko ercegović, Title Dubrovnik, 2004, 88 x 132 cm
BIOGRAPHY:
He was born in Dubrovnik, in 1975, where he graduated high school. He graduated in Cinematography from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He works in video and photography. He lives and works in Dubrovnik and Zagreb.
LUKŠA PEKO: TERRA INCOGNITA
20.3. - 29.4.2018
Curator: Marin Ivanović
Lukša Peko: Between the Waves II, 2010., acryl on wood
The Latin name of Peko's Terra incognita denotes the archaism of ancient incomplete assumptions about the world, and they, precisely because they are unfounded, give much way to speculation and fantasy. Given the saturated flaming gamma of yellow and red tones, and dark blue tonal values (valeur), he may have indicated precisely the area of intolerable equatorial heat in which no man can live.
Marin Ivanović
Lukša Peko: before the storm, 2010., acrly on wood
JELENA BANDO: A PROPER SPACE
24.01. - 04.03.2018.
Curator: Lea Vene (Miroslav Kraljević Gallery, Photo Gallery KIC in Zagreb)
The exhibition A Proper Space by Jelena Bando is the third and final exhibition of the cycle started in 2004. The tripartite cycle was opened with the exhibition The Other in 2015 at the Gallery Galežnica in Velika Gorica. The next exhibition was Matches in the Disappearance at VN Gallery in Zagreb, and the last one is the series A Proper Space (earlier exhibited at the Croatian Association of Artist in Zagreb in 2016 and the Lošinj Museum in 2017). All three series thematically reflect the process of constructing the look at the Other, openly playing with subjective interpretations of accepted visual, both cultural and everyday, symbols of the Other. (Lea Vene)
Jelena Bando is an academic painter who graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 2012. She has attended study visits and residencies in Germany (Wurzburg, Berlin) and France (Paris). She has exhibited in thirteen solo exhibitions in Croatia, Germany, Sweden and France, and about thirty exhibitions in the country and abroad. She has won two awards for drawing and graphic arts (SKC Gallery, Belgrade; 15th Biennial of Drawing, Belgrade). In 2013 she started the project 36 Mountains that has grown into a renowned festival of illustration. She lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia.
Jelena Bando, Photography
Painting is a medium that provides an artist with numerous possibilities, among which is creating a unique system of signs, that is, a visual language shaped by the artist. Such a unique system of symbols, signs and forms, which we can also call Jelena Bando’s visual world, is, both in terms of research and visual vocabulary, focused on the Other. This relationship with the Other, that the contemporary theory defines as a concept that problematizes the interaction of one person with another, but also as the issue of temporally and spatially remote communication between cultures, became the main topic of her work. (…) However, with the series of works A Proper Space the artist makes a semantic shift. This time she elaborates her own view of the Other by replacing the imaginary landscape with her real living space. In this subtle balance on the verge of real and imaginary she creates a new visual language, again full of uncanny and realistic reference points, such as human figures, plants and animals. This time, the so often mentioned Other has found his safe place in the artist’s pleasant every day, in the interior of her apartment, surrounded by real motives from her life.
Morana Matković
Jelena Bando: watercolor on paper
The proper space is the space of home in which the motifs from the author's every day are intertwined in a palimpsest way with motifs she previously used to characterize the Other. The author ends the cycle on the known terrain where she places only the references to the Other space.
Lea Vene
Jelena Bando: To the White Tiger, 2016., oil on canvas
Jelena Bando: The Garden, 2016., mixed media on paper
AHMET ERTUĞ: VANISHING POINT
14.12.2017 – 11.3.2018
Vanishing point, noun
1 : a point at which receding parallel lines seem to meet when represented in linear perspective
2 : a point at which something disappears or ceases to exist
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Author of the exhibition: Marin Ivanović, Jelena Tamindžija
The exhibition by famous Turkish photographer Ahmet Ertuğ, has been listed as one of the 5 most significant and most anticipated world exhibitions in the Turkish Airlines magazine for the 2018, along with the exhibitions in London, Amsterdam, Istanbul and Tokyo. Photos of palaces, libraries and theaters in Italy are in the exhibition, along with photos of the most important five constructions in Dubrovnik such as the Rector's Palace, the Franciscan Monastery and library, Sponza Palace and the Dominican Monastery library with its 700-year past. Ahmet Ertug's photography has a deep meditative energy and it withdraws the observer into the intellectual content of his subjects, ranging from the vast interior of monumental buildings to the silent gazes of ancient sculptures. He makes his negative, a large one, 8 x 10 inches or 20 x 25 cm with a large format Sinar p2 view camera, a modern generation of his other classic antique cameras with dark wood housings and brass lenses.
Ahmet Ertuğ's photographs are breviaries of images, writing of silent prayers of the whole humanity. Not only do they reflect the formal nations of the observed scenes, but they also reflect the very life, time with no end, all people who existed there together with all their desires, all knowledge and craft given to men, all beauty of unknown source, and all light from the beginning of the world born in our eyes with every blink and forever young. Ertuğ's love for time seemingly passed and objects as testaments of times past, the love for a photograph, the love for existence in time – that is the finest thread in the weave of the most beautiful photographs; the aliquot tone which makes a composition harmonious.
Marin Ivanović
The geometric regulatory in the relationship between elements in the frame is especially found in the photograph of the Franciscan monastery: its red floors and white square tiles harmonically come together in an architectural unit with diagonal lines of shelves as an organically connected element for defining the vanishing space. The importance of the ratio of heigh, width and depth is particularly enhanced on the photograph of the Dominican monastery library. It is a library of a very small surface, but the ideal proportions of the point of observation defined by Ertuğ give it a monumental impression.
Marin Ivanović
Ahmet Ertuğ: Library of the Dominican Monastery, Dubrovnik, 2017., chromogenic print mounted on dibond