ARCHIVE · 2012
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LUKO PIPLICA |
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In his exhibition My Visit to Dubrovnik Luko Piplica, a contemporary Dubrovnik artist, submits paintings, photographs and video works created in the span between 1992 and 2012. The title of the exhibition does not imply any play of words or his close connection with the Konavle region, the artist’s own life-setting, rather the gloomy registration of the circumstance that in our own town, which is increasingly taking on the contours of a tourist destination, and in which spiritual integrity is becoming a rather unwelcome category, we all increasingly feel like visitors. The problem aspect, mostly that in which visual conventions are re-examined, is the crucial determinant of the author’s work, irrespective of the medium involved. In his paintings, for example, we come upon a conceptual approach to painting, as in the series of war paintings of the early nineties, as well as a classical tackling of the painterly material, as in the case of the new works. In the series of war paintings, the support of which is mostly a coarse blanket covered with thick layers of paint, the characteristic individual brushwork is almost done away with, and the artist is working with incising, stencils, simple forms, emphasising the two-dimensionality of the ground and creating compositions on strictly symmetrical principles. The inheritance of the war speaks out through the poverty of materials and a certain collapse of order. The human and animal depictions, the objects, even t he decorative elements, have totally the same degree of (lack of) physicality, as if they were fragments of a scattered universe that in its inability to form the order of former days makes do with the first framework to be imposed – the two-dimensionality of the painting. In some more recent works the flat human figures or the hybrids like the women-cypresses, have been replaced by rocking, fluid human figures that in their incorporeality are perhaps closest to shadows or projections. In the series of self-portraits, on the other hand, testing out the very slippery borders of categories of identity, the painter comes to terms with his own likeness, actually insisting on corporeality and volume, in a very classical painterly manner. Sometimes the very manner of painting is playing with commonplaces of art history, such as the work in which he places Marcel Duchamp in a Dubrovnik context with an allusion to his celebrated urinal, as well as with a pastiche of the expression of the Dubrovnik Colourist School. A re-evaluation of the point of his own artistic mission is most consistently articulated in the work Maja Sofija, which includes as equal elements writing, experimental paintings done on panel and photographs of cypresses of the Konavle region that have fallen sick of a kind of plant tumour, and the re-examination of identity, the semantic and energetic determination of place and our horizons of expectation there in the series of photographs of Hill of the Visions in Međugorje.In his video works he mostly uses a single frame, creating works of great refinement and visual poignancy (Olive Pulp, Cypresses), and sometimes, in post-modernist manner, mingles the conventions of film, video and performance, as in the case with the work What is in the waves?, which has a pronounced cinematographic structure, very close to the postulates of Dogma 95.The titles of the works and the accompanying texts are an essential resource in the experience of works the real theme of which is always the interrogation of certain categories, which luckily for the viewer always go hand in hand with impressive visuality. Irrespective of the medium he chooses, Luko Piplica addresses his everyday surroundings, and the soil, cypresses, sea and olive trees are palpable signals of reality, a recognisable first level during the immersion into the many strata of Luko’s works and the search in which we accompany him with pleasure.
Luko Piplica was born in Dubrovnik on January 16, 1969. He took a BFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1994. He lives and works in in Dubrovnik.
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BOŽENA KONČIĆ BADURINA October 9 to November 4 2012 |
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Božena Končić Badurina is a contemporary Croatian artist who, instead of conventional setups of finalized exhibits, most often organises live performances in gallery and other venues. At issue are situations that include interaction between the artist as performer and public, or public and extras taken on by the artist. The simple scripts of these mainly static situations create a kind of intensive field that places the visitors in the centre of attention, but losing control over their own space, and the usual comfortable role of observer and consumer becomes instead a position of a certain insecurity. In these moments of closeness and exposure, the borders vis-à-vis others cease for a moment to be strong and defined, the participants become aware of themselves and of the presence of others, and of their reactions to them. What most of all interests this artist is actually research into the boundaries of one's own and others' mental and physical space, particularly of those peripheral zones in which the spaces open up, touch or mingle, make us more sensitive to ourselves and others. The propriety and refinement of the interrelations and the richness of contents that Božena Končić Badurina includes in her performances make her one of the most rewarding artists on the contemporary Croatian art scene.
At the exhibition in the Dubrovnik Museum of Modern Art, along with a presentation of photographic and video documentation of her previous performances, the artist is organising new interactive works closely connected with the concrete space and personnel of the Gallery, now promoted into an object of exhibition interest. For example, in the work Custodian, instead of on the exhibits, the focus is on the employees of the institution who are usually just logistical, unemphasised parts of the museum-gallery operating system, while in Spectator Area the artist confronts “audience-exhibit” with gallery visitors, turning them into an object of observation. With a simple operative switch, a bizarre, twisted mirror image is created, calling conventions and customs into question, and jump-starting things out of their position of listless routine.
Božena Končić Badurina was born in 1967 in Zagreb. She lives and works in Zagreb. She took a degree in German and Russian language and literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb in 1995. She also took a BFA at the printmaking department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1996, class of Miroslav Šutej. She is a member of the artists’ associations HDLU and HZSU. She has exhibited in solo and collective exhibitions at home and abroad. Božena Končić Badurina has won three prizes: the Zagrebačka banka Prize for a Dissertation Work (1996); the Public’s Prize at the 24th Youth Salon in 1996 and the HDLU Best Exhibition Prize in 2007. In 2010 she had two months as artist in residence in Art in General, New York.Major exhibitions, projects and performances in the last few years:2012. Simplon express/povratak, Zagreb, Milano, Lion, Pariz ; 2011. The event, 29. Grafički bijenale, Moderna galerija, Ljubljana; 2011. Out Of Left Field, MMSU, Rijeka; 2011. Stage TheSpace, Betahaus, Berlin, 2011. Slika od zvuka, Galerija NO, MSU, Zagreb; 2010. 1001 noć i druge priče, Galerija Prozori, Zagreb; 2010. More passive than every passivity, Art in General, New York; 2010. Sintart, Zbirka Richter, MSU, Zagreb; 2010. HYPERLINK "mailto:T-HTnagrada@msu.hr" T-HTnagrada@msu.hr, MSU, Zagreb; 2009. 9. Performance Art Festival, Barutana, Osijek; 2009. Narančasti pas i druge priče (još bolje od stvarnosti), Studentski centar, Zagreb; 2009. Gledati druge, Umjetnički paviljon, Zagreb; 2007. Privremena rekonstrukcija, Galerija Moria, Stari Grad; 2007. Connected, Galerija PM/Galerija Bačva, Zagreb; 2007. HYPERLINK "mailto:T-HTnagrada@msu.hr" T-HTnagrada@msu.hr, MSU, 19. paviljon zagrebačkog velesajma, Zagreb; 2007. Labsus osebno/osobno, Gradska galerija, Labin; 2007. 47. porečki annale, Istarska sabornica, Poreč
http://bozenakoncicbadurina.blogspot.com
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MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART August - October 2012 |
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The collection presented at this exhibition, is mainly premised on works by domestic artists, from Dubrovnik, Croatia and the former Yugoslavia, that is, although with a certain number of pieces by artists from other countries. Among the exhibits are works of almost all the best known Dubrovnik and national painters, printmakers and sculptors. Particularly prominent are names of the founding fathers of Croatian modern art: Vlaho Bukovac, Mato Celestin Medović, Ivan Meštrović, Emanuel Vidović. Then come almost all the important names of Croatian art of the 20th century: Menci Clement Crnčić, Robert Frangeš-Mihanović, Frano Kršinić, Miroslav Kraljević, Vladimir Becić, Oskar Herman, Vilko Gecan, Milivoj Uzelac, Ljubo Babić, Marino Tartaglia, Oton Postružnik, Vanja Radauš, Krsto Hegedušić, Ivan Lozica, Ivo Dulčić, Antun Masle, Đuro Pulitika, Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Kosta Angeli-Radovani, Edo Murtić, Oton Gliha, Branko Ružić, Josip Vaništa, Marijan Jevšovar, Ivan Kožarić, Julije Knifer... Because of the logical fact that it is mostly and most completely the production of Dubrovnik or of other parts of the country that is represented, it is possible to follow almost all the characteristics of modern and contemporary Croatian art and the changes that it went through, concurrent and coherent with contemporary events in Europe during the period from the end of the 19thcentury until the present day. The exhibition includes art with the properties and reflections of Impressionism and Art Nouveau, various Expressionist and colourist versions of the authentic local tones; the beginnings of the socially-toned painting of the Zemlja group of the 1930s, Naïve art, either rural or urban, Abstract Expressionism, of both the organic and the geometrical type of the 1950s and 1960s; there are representatives of the Conceptual Art of the 1970s and the post-modern painting tendencies of the 1980s; and there are entirely contemporary versions of extended-media art, including photography, video, performance art and installations.Although much more fragmentarily, also possible to view in the exhibition is the art of the rest of the former state of Yugoslavia, through the works of important artists of the republics as they then were. Among them are Zora Petrović, Petar Dobrović, Milan Konjović, Peđa Milosavljević, Sava Šumanović, Milo Milunović, Petar Lubarda, Marij Pregelj and Janez Bernik.In the last twelve years, since 2000, the holdings of the Gallery have been enriched by about 780 art works, that is, by a third of the whole inventory, which today numbers about 2,500 pieces.Also involved in this wave of rejuvenation are the works of foreign artists, particularly from Belgian artist of world renown Jan Fabre, who donated three of his works to the Museum after his individual show in 2006, and the most recent donation of the work of American photographer Steve McCurry, who was featured in an exhibition in the Museum’s premises immediately before the present show. This exhibition is an opportunity for numerous domestic, and in particular for the foreign, guests who in summer visit Dubrovnik in great numbers to get to know the best of the modern and contemporary art in the holdings of the Dubrovnik Museum of Modern Art. This applies principally to the art of Dubrovnik and Croatia, but also to the art of the region and to works by artists from all over the world that indicate the extent of the interests and exhibition activities of the Museum.
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STEVE McCURRY May 5 – July 22, 2012. |
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The exhibition Unguarded moment represents the work of one of the most famous contemporary photographers, the American Steve McCurry. Around 160 photographs are on show featuring also one of the most recognizable photographs ever, the portrait of anonymous Afghan girl from 1984 as well as the film Search for the «Afghan girl» from 2002, which documents the finding of his famed model 18 years later.
Steve McCurry was born in Philadelphia in 1950, and graduated from the College of Arts and Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University. After working at a newspaper for two years, he left to freelance in India.His career was launched when, disguised in native garb, he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel-controlled Afghanistan just before the Russian invasion. When he emerged, he had rolls of film sewn into his clothes and images that would be published around the world which were among the first to show the conflict there. His coverage won the Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad (1980), an award dedicated to photographers exhibiting exceptional courage and enterprise. Steve McCurry is member of Magnum Photos since 1986. He has covered many areas of international and civil conflict, including Burma, Sri Lanka, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, the former Yugoslavia, and continuing coverage of Afghanistan and Tibet.
McCurry’s work has been featured in every major magazine in the world and frequently appears in National Geographic magazine. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including Magazine Photographer of the Year (1984), awarded by the National Press Photographers’ Association. This was the same year in which he won an unprecedented four first prizes in the World Press Photo Contest. He has won the Olivier Rebbot Memorial Award twice. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the globe in prestigious museums and galleries. He has published many books including The Imperial Way (1985), Monsoon (1988), South Southeast (2000), Sanctuary (2002), The Path to Buddha: A Tibetan Pilgrimage (2003), Looking East (2006), In the Shadow of Mountains (2007), The Unguarded Moment. (2009), and The Iconic Photographs (2011).
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MATO CELESTIN MEDOVIĆ (1857-1920) Exhibition devised by Igor Zidić |
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The exhibition Mato Celestin Medović: A retrospective will devised by an outstanding expert in the oeuvre of Medović, art historian Igor Zidić is the biggest exhibition to date (the last major retrospective was organised 22 years ago, in 1990) of this (next to Vlaho Bukovac) most important Dubrovnik painter from the fin-de-siècle, a pioneer of modern Croatian art. The exhibition has been transferred from Klovićevi dvori Gallery in Zagreb, where it has recently closed. Although there have had to be some reductions made in the number of exhibits, the Dubrovnik public will have the opportunity to view, on the three floors of the Museum of Modern Art, the most capacious display ever of this painting classic. More than 170 Medović works are on show, from all phases, and in a full range of subjects. As well as early drawings, portraits from different periods, pictures of religious subjects, it is possible to see his still lifes and many landscapes of the region of Pelješac and Dubrovnik so deeply characteristic of him. Of the history paintings, the famed large-format painting Bacchanal, several times exhibited abroad and awarded medals in Munich and Paris, owned by the Modern Gallery in Zagreb, will be on show in this exhibition. Side by side with works borrowed from numerous private and museum-gallery collections from Croatia and abroad are valuable exhibits from the holdings of the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik.
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue-monograph with an extensive essay by Igor Zidić, who devised the exhibition.
Biography
Together with the two-years-older Vlaho Bukovac, Mato Celestin Medović is the founder of Croatian modern painting, and one of its most highly valued representatives.
He was born on November 17, 1857 in Kuna, a village on the peninsula of Pelješac. After a year of education at the Franciscan Monastery of Our Lady of Loreto (Delorita) on Pelješac, in 1868 he left for the monastery of the Minorites in Dubrovnik, where he entered the novitiate. There, he started doing drawings and painting in oil, and in 1880 went off to study painting in Italy. He had private lessons in Rome from 1880 to 1882 (Lodovik Seitz, Francesco Grandi), and then from 1883 to 1884 in Florence (Antonio Ciseri). In 1886 he returned to Dubrovnik. Aware of the shortcomings of his incomplete training he went to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (his teachers were Gabriel Hackl, Ludwig Löfftz and Aleksandar Wagner). The three last years spent in the class of Wagner left the deepest trace from this period, in the spirit of the decorative historical compositions of Karl Piloty. He spent 1893 to 1894 in Dubrovnik and Kuna, and left the order. After Munich, his conception for the making of religious paintings underwent fundamental modifications. Details of setting were rejected, and the paintings were dominated by the monumental figures of the saints. He spent 1895 to 1907 in Zagreb, where under the influence of the plein air thinking and rich colourism of Vlaho Bukovac he changed his brushstroke and invigorated his colours. He is the first of the modern Croatian painters to have emancipated still life as a freestanding subject, which also goes for landscape, which he mainly painted on Pelješac, in plein air, with a bright scale of pure colours. This new visual expression was transferred also to the historical compositions, to paintings with religious subjects and portraits.
In 1908 when he returned to his native Kuna, a new period in the painting of Celestin Medović started, forming what is called the Pelješac phase, interrupted by a brief period in 1912 to 1914 when he lived in Vienna. In this period he painted almost entirely landscapes, abounding in the bright southern light and in vigorous colours, with which he made his greatest contribution to Croatian painting.
Mato Celestin Medović died on January 20, 1920, in Sarajevo.
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In the exhibition From the Holdings of the Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, works from the end of the 19thto the beginning of the 21st century, the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik presents a selection from its lavish collection of modern and contemporary art, which numbers more than two thousand four hundred paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, installations and video works.
The collection of MOMA Dubrovnik features works of almost all the best known Dubrovnik and national painters, printmakers and sculptors. Particularly prominent are names of the founding fathers of Croatian modern art: Vlaho Bukovac, Mato Celestin Medović, Ivan Meštrović, Emanuel Vidović. Then come almost all the important names of Croatian art of the 20th century: Menci Clement Crnčić, Robert Frangeš-Mihanović, Frano Kršinić, Miroslav Kraljević, Vladimir Becić, Oskar Herman, Vilko Gecan, Milivoj Uzelac, Ljubo Babić, Marino Tartaglia, Oton Postružnik, Vanja Radauš, Krsto Hegedušić, Ivan Lozica, Ivo Dulčić, Antun Masle, Đuro Pulitika, Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Kosta Angeli-Radovani, Edo Murtić, Oton Gliha, Branko Ružić, Josip Vaništa, Marijan Jevšovar, Ivan Kožarić, Julije Knifer... as well as contemporary artists such as Braco Dimitrijević, Goran Trbuljak, Željko Jerman, Igor Rončević, Duje Jurić, Vlasta Žanić, Siniša Labrović, Slaven Tolj, Mara Bratoš, Viktor Daldon, Ivan Skvrce..
Through the holdings of the Gallery, then, it is possible to follow almost all the characteristics of modern and contemporary Croatian art and the changes that it went through, in synch with contemporary events in Europe during the period from the end of the 19th century until the present day. The collection includes art with the properties and reflections of Impressionism and Art Nouveau, various Expressionist and colourist versions of the authentic local tones; the beginnings of the socially-toned painting of the Zemlja group of the 1930s, Abstract art, of both the organic and the geometrical type of the 1950s and 1960s; there are representatives of the Conceptual Art of the 1970s and the post-modern painting tendencies of the 1980s; and there are entirely contemporary versions of extended-media art, including photography, video, performance art and installations.