ZAGREB, 2 March (Hina) - Key works of Croatian art from the 1960s will be staged in the New York-based Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on 7 March and this exhibition will last three years.
This exhibition marks an important collaboration between the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, and MoMA.
"Situated between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc, the socialist country of Yugoslavia (1945–91) was notably open to international influence and enjoyed broad cultural freedom. Within it, the Croatian capital of Zagreb sustained a unique artistic scene through the mid-20th century. Founded in 1954, the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zagreb (now the Museum of Contemporary Art) now established itself early on as a place of experimentation and support for contemporary artists," says MoMA on its website.
"Featuring significant artworks borrowed from the museum in Zagreb alongside MoMA’s holdings, this gallery highlights the work of the artist group Gorgona, active from 1959 to 1966," MoMA says.
"Gorgona’s members—comprised of artists, art critics, and curators who led their own independent and successful artistic lives—engaged in a system of absurd and nihilistic activities in the form of self-organized exhibitions, writings, and everyday actions. Josip Vaništa, the group’s founder, wrote in 1961, "Gorgona seeks neither work or result in art."
"Spotlighting one of the rare female voices in 1960s Zagreb is an installation in the adjacent room by Ljerka Šibenik. Šibenik’s innovative engagement with space marked a radical new path in Croatian art."
This event is organised by Ana Janevski, MoMA curator, Department of Media and Performance, with Rachel Rosin, Curatorial Assistant, Departments of Drawings and Prints and Curatorial Affairs.
The installation titled Zagreb (opening on March 1), will be in Gallery 406, which is one room out of sixty in the Museum's collection galleries, Janevski told Hina.
The collection display opening on March 1 on the 4th floor of MoMA’s collection galleries is the outcome of a longstanding relation with the region and the two museums namely through c_map Eastern Europe (Contemporary Modern Art Perspective), she says.
MoMA curators have extensively travelled the region, connecting with the local artistic scene and in case of Croatia resulting in several important collection acquisitions, the full set of the Gorgona magazines, and works by Knifer, Mangelos, Vaništa and Kožarić. Chirstophe Cherix, the Chief Curator of the Department of Prints and Drawings, and one of the past leaders of the EE c_map group, who was instrumental in the realization of these acquisitions, was the initiator of the collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb. The collaboration started during the directorship of Zdenka Badovinac in 2023 and continued with the current director Vesna Meštrić and the MoMA curator Ana Janevski.
The collaboration between the two institutions, showing works from the MoMA collection alongside loans from the Museum in Zagreb, will allow to present the depth and the richness of the artistic scene in Zagreb in the 60ties and the important role played by the Gallery of Contemporary Art, now the Museum of the Contemporary Art, Janevski tells Hina.
