Croatian Landscape – Levelling Histories on an Imaginary Horizon
Project Curator: Lorenzo Fusi
Exhibition Curators: Ana Kovačić and Sanja Sekelj
Coordination: Janka Vukmir
Curator’s Talk:
Tuesday, the 18th of November 2014 at 19 p.m.
Exhibition Opening,
Tuesday, the 18th of November 2014 at 20 p.m.
The exhibition will remain open until the 6th of December 2014.
Art People Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 12:00 – 19:00
Exhibitors and authors of documentation:
Željko Badurina, Dino Bičanić, Tomislav Brajnović, Hrvoslava Brkušić and Igor Bezinović, Eric del Castillo, Marijan Crtalić, Fokus grupa, Lorenzo Fusi, Sanja Horvatinčić, Croatian Tourist Board, Croatian designers society (HDD), Siniša Labrović, Letricija Linardić, Anton Maračić, Marko Marković, Mario Matoković, Bojan Mrđenović, Pan Am Airways, Renata Poljak, Peter Popijač, Rajko Radovanović, Ivana Rončević, Neli Ruzić, Davor Sanvincenti, Gasper Sopi, Superstudio 29 / Ira Payer, Maša Poljanec, Andro Giunio, Saša Šimpraga, Noel Šuran, Ivan Tudek, Sandra Vitaljić and Ana Zubak.
Accompanying program:
Tuesday, the 18th of November 2014 at 7 p.m.
Curator’s Talk with Lorenzo Fusi, Ana Kovačić and Sanja Sekelj
Thursday, the 27th of November 2014 at 6 p.m.
Sanja Horvatinčić, Institute for Art History, Zagreb, research presentation on monuments of the 2nd World War
Saturday, the 29th of November 2014 at 6 p.m.
Fokus grupa (Iva Kovač & Elvis Krstulović) presentation of their work
Tuesday, the 2d of December 2014 at 6 p.m.
Gerda Riechert, presentation of artist’s books (Glamour, Sisters and Second Hand) about Zagreb as seen by foreign artists who live in it.
Moderator of the program: Janka Vukmir
Absurdities, problems, burdens, hardships, struggles, attempts, efforts, pretentiousness, kitsch, nonsense, superficiality, survival, lightness, humour and all the other wonders of Croatian reality are portrayed through the works of artists and documents in this exhibition, which describes Croatia, and together they describe exactly what this group of authors is trying to say about Croatia. The setup of the exhibition offers a horizontal line of forcibly levelled disparate elements defining the cultural, political, economical and material history of the country.
Exhibition Croatian Landscape – Levelling Histories on an Imaginary Horizon was created in a joint effort and as a response to the invitation of curator Lorenzo Fusi to exhibitors to think about gathering responses to following questions about Croatia: “What kind of picture does Croatia give to the outside? What does Croatia want me to know about it or what is it trying to make me think about it?”, “What do I know about Croatia? “and “What is Croatia?”
Ana Kovačić and Sanja Sekelj chose the works for the exhibition between proposals submitted to the open call. The selection was made based on the following criteria: the degree to which the proposals followed and answered to the above cited questions, but also the degree to which the proposals could lend themselves to the physical and technical capabilities and requirements.
The result is a kind of Croatian horizon, a uniform row of collective comments, views, criticisms and reflections on the cultural, social, political, hierarchical, assimilative and simplifying horizon of the milieu in which we live.
When the Institute of Contemporary Art in Zagreb invited the curator Lorenzo Fusi to submit a draft for the exhibition, he said that he thought about this collaboration as an opportunity to explore the methodological tools / strategies in the field of producing exhibitions and to test them out. He was not interested in making a strong curatorial statement which would be in line with his own conclusions, and which would thus serve so as to reinforce his own curatorial voice or confirm his curatorial authority. It soon became clear to him that this collaboration is an opportunity to learn from the program of the Institute for Contemporary Art, as well as from his own contribution to it. What he proposed was the creation of a conceptual framework shaped by the setup. The contents were discussed and decided upon collectively. The exhibition was an invitation to reflect upon a set of different issues, such as: creating an image, identity, nationalism, collective amnesia and its psychological removal, hospitality industry, rhetorical tropes and clichés.
Lorenzo Fusi is the Director of Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, one of the oldest non-profit photographic galleries in the UK. Before that, he was International curator of the Liverpool Biennial in 2010 and 2012. In the period from 2001 to 2009, Lorenzo Fusi was chief curator at the Palazzo delle Papesse Center for Contemporary Art, and curator of the Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, Italy.
He has curated or co-curated more than 50 exhibitions and is the author and editor of numerous publications including recently published: The Piers From Here; Changing Difference: Queer Politics and Shifting Identities, and monograph book Alfredo Jaar, published in 2012. Fusi regularly lectures on British and international universities. He is a member of the board of the International festival of photography in Liverpool, and is a member of the Board Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (NMNM).
Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco has just appointed him a new artistic director of the International Prize for Contemporary Art PIAC. In Croatia he has participated in 2010 in the jury of Radoslav Putar Award in Zagreb and Velika Gorica, organized by the Institute for Contemporary Art.
Ana Kovacic is an art historian and head of the Miroslav Kraljević Gallery.
Sanja Sekelj is an art historian and translator of French language. She works as a curator in the Miroslav Kraljević Gallery and as a researcher at the Institute of Art History.
Janka Vukmir is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Contemporary Art in Zagreb.