Exhibition history

Realise! Resist! React! Performance and Politics in the Post-Yugoslav Context of the 1990s

14.12.2023. - 17.03.2024. / MSU, 3. kat

Following the 1990s – the decade of major changes – different countries and historical time zones arose in the small-scale territory of the formerly joint Federation. Created in wars, in more-or-less successful political and economic transitions, they often readily disowned their legacy.

His Supporting Hand – Curating the Curator: Davor Matičević

09.11.2023. - 11.02.2024. / MSU, Black Box

His Supporting Hand – Curating the Curator: Davor Matičević is the latest exhibition from the Triggers cycle, Museum of Contemporary Art’s invitation to artists, curators and curatorial collectives for a critical review or a response to the museum holdings. It opens on Thursday, 9 November 2023 at 19:00, at MCA’s Black Box. The exhibition name is a quote by Ivan Posavec from an interview published in the magazine 15 Dana, explaining how a large part of his photographic work, as well as the work of Mio Vesović, would not exist without Matičević’s support.

Vlatka Horvat: Good Company / “Triggers”

14.09.2023. - 12.11.2023. / MSU, 2. kat

Vlatka Horvat’s Good Company presents a selection of works from the museum's Sculpture collection through the lens of the artist’s practice.

In the space of the exhibition, small groups of works from different eras and artistic movements are placed in dialogue with each other. Figurative pieces and abstract works sit side by side, and their spatial arrangements underscore contrasts and connections between different formal gestures and sculptural materials. Horvat’s selection and presentation of works offers a playful, dynamic view of the grouped sculptures, their relations, connections and possible interpretations.  

The Motovun Encounters

12.09.2023. - 15.10.2023. / Muzej moderne i suvremene umjetnosti, Rijeka

* Opening: 12/9/2023, at 8 pm

The Motovun Encounters is an international group exhibition dedicated to the research of artist encounters in Motovun. Taking a retrospective view of the history of The Motovun Encounters, and relying on museum documentation, archival materials and selected works of art from different museum collections, it gives an overview of the international manifestation, contributing to its research valorization and contextualization

Capable of Idealism (2023)

31.08.2023. - 05.11.2023. / MSU, 2. kat

Taras Gembik, Yulia Krivich, Kaja Kusztra / The "Sunflower" Solidarity Community Center

„We chose to carry out a performative reenactment of the 1981 Vlado Martek work, Capable of Idealism (Sposoban za idealizam). In our performance, Martek’s practice of visualizing poetry turned into a starting point for posing questions about sharing profits, power, and pleasures in the institutional space. Social structures in an art institution can be questioned using critical methods, but can they be consumed together?
 

Possibilities for 2023 – Arcades Project by Željko Beljan

04.07.2023. - 06.09.2023. / MSU, Black Box

In the last few years, in his artistic practice, Željko Beljan has been focusing almost exclusively on handicraft and its position in contemporary artistic practices, where he explores craft techniques as an artistic medium. Traditional handicraft techniques have been rooted in his family for generations, and have been present in his life from his early years. But it was only through his research of the contemporary craft that he realized its strength and interesting position at the dividing line between everyday functional objects and artistic objects. The Arcades Project arose as a result of his interest in a wide range of materials in the context of a practice dedicated to handicraft—in addition to his work with textiles, while creating board games, he works with wood by hand, where he explores the relationship between handiwork and amateur, hobbyist participation in sports (and games in general), placing an emphasis on the participation and involvement of the audience in the realization of his works.

Modern Contemporary

04.07.2023. - 03.09.2023. / MSU, 2. kat

Modern Contemporary / Collection as a verb: Triggers

Modern Contemporary builds upon the first exhibition from 1955 with which the City Gallery of Contemporary Art (today's Museum of Contemporary Art) started its exhibition activity. It was an exhibition from the holdings which presented a selection of the first acquired works.

The exhibited works had been purchased from exhibitions and studios during 1954 and 1955. The gallery’s acquisitions strived, in line with their possibilities, to follow, i.e. document the dynamics of contemporary art life. The exhibition was complemented by several older exhibits, which laboured towards contemporary European painting of the time or spoke about individual authors’ typical stages.

Works of Heart (1970-2023)

15.06.2023. - 07.01.2024. / MSU, 1. i 2. kat povremenih izložbi

Works of Heart (1970-2023) is the first major museum survey of one of the most important Croatian artists, Sanja Iveković, in her city. The exhibition is a collaboration of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb with Kusthalle Vienna, where it premiered last year. Although the two exhibitions share the same title, the Zagreb exhibition is larger and adapted to the specific space of the Zagreb museum. It also includes a new part conceived as an archive entitled Meeting Points: Documents in the Making, 1968-1982, specially curated for the occasion by Ivana Bago. 

Arseny Zhilyaev: In the Days of War

23.05.2023. - 27.08.2023. / MSU, 2. kat

The title of the exhibition, "In the Days of War," was taken from a painting by the prominent socialist realist Geliy Korzhev (1925-2012). The artwork, also titled "In the Days of War," marked a significant milestone in the artist's career was completed in 1954. It was during this year that the City Gallery of Contemporary Art (later known as the Museum of Contemporary Art) was established in Zagreb by a group of artists and cultural innovators. These events occurred one year after the death of Joseph Stalin and two years prior to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR, which is renowned for Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" denouncing the personality cult and dictatorship of the former Soviet leader.

The Visible Ones

18.05.2023. - 01.10.2023. / MSU, 3. kat

The inter – institutional project and exhibition The Visible Ones represents more than eighty female authors, studies and indicates the pronouncedly low representation of women artists in art collections of museum institutions, and also presents certain aspects and mapping of the contemporary artistic practice of women artists in Croatia.

With this project, we seek to indicate the contemporary fine art production of women artists, which is marked by great achievements, but is nevertheless insufficiently visible.