The Museum of Contemporary Art will soon present the fourth segment of the permanent display Collection as a Verb, an exhibition section that continues to explore the idea of multiple narratives and fluid transitions between them.
Drawing on artistic practices that have been clearly articulated on the local scene since the 1970s through the programmes of the former Contemporary Art Gallery (today MSU), this segment emphasizes the key role of the institution and its actors in shaping a new generation of artists, particularly female artists.

Within this framework, the Situations space develops as a site of dialogue between museum collections, new research insights, interpretations of artistic oeuvres, and phenomena on the contemporary art scene.

More about the exhibition

Through curatorial visions and the support of directors such as Marijan Susovski and Davor Matičević, as well as curator Želimir Koščević, the scene evolved towards a more open and experimental exhibition model. Group and solo exhibitions, including those engaging public space, enabled the affirmation of new artistic voices and the transavantgarde tendencies of the 1980s.

The new segment brings together works that resist fixed identities and clear boundaries. Instead, they embody fragmented subjectivities and explore spaces in between: the socially accepted and the marginalized, the feminine and the masculine, the normalized and the rejected. The exhibition rejects singular narratives and binary oppositions, opening up space for “something third” as a fluid, shifting zone of meaning.

Inspired by Vera Fischer’s 1973 exhibition Flowers and Non-Flowers, this segment develops the concept of an in-between space in which opposites coexist as part of the same context. We conceive this context as a network of vibrating states, shaped through different materials, processes, and social experiences.

The exhibition Flowers – Non-Flowers – Something Third will be presented on the third floor of the Museum, inviting visitors to explore the space between the familiar and the indeterminate.

Artists featured in the exhibition:
Marina Abramović, Breda Beban, Otti Berger, Jagoda Buić, Vlasta Delimar, Marina Ercegović, Jadranka Fatur, Zvjezdana Fio, Vera Fischer, Sanja Iveković, Jagoda Kaloper, Ivan Kožarić, Annette Messager, Marijana Muljević, Damir Očko, Ana Opalić, Eglė Rakauskaitė, Lala Raščić, Martha Rosler, Carolee Schneemann, Edita Schubert, Seka Severin Tudja, Sofija Silvia, Drago Trumbetaš, and Branka Uzur.

Curatorial team:
Zdenka Badovinac, Daniela Bilopavlović Bedenik, Kristina Bonjeković Stojković, Petra Cegur, Jasna Jakšić, Iva Rada Janković, Ivana Kancir, Morana Matković, Vesna Meštrić, Martina Munivrana, Bela Rupena, Ana Škegro, Leila Topić

Exhibition design: Marko Tadić
Signage and graphic concept: Damir Gamulin
Graphic layout: Martin Peranović
Visual identity of the Collection as a Verb cycle: Igor Grubić

Igor Grubić: We Build te Museum, the Museum Builds Us