2006.02.21. – Doors Art Foundation
The exhibition presents works of 16 artists of the Croatian origin who
are living and working n New York City, and/or who have been
inspired by the City during their residency programs. . The exhibition
considers constructing and deconstructing a myth of New York as the
apex of contemporary visual art. Through a variety of agendas and
artistic disciplines, body, personal experience and emotions
collide with megacity’s cool vistas and estranged conduct. Work will
be exhibited at the Gallery MC with the opening reception on……
posjetite www.doors-art.com
within a croatian perspective
Ante Bozanic | Predrag Dubravcic | Vlatka Horvat | Bozidar Jurjevic | Zlatko Kopljar | Kristian Kozul | Andreja Kuluncic | Kristina Leko | Leo Modrcin | Dario Solman | Sandra Sterle | Olja Stipanovic | Goran Tomcic | Ksenija Turcic | Mio Vesovic| Danijel Zezelj
curated by Branko Franceschi
The exhibition presents works of 16 artists of the Croatian origin who
are living and working in New York City, and/or who have been
inspired by the City during their residency programs. . The exhibition
considers constructing and deconstructing a myth of New York as the
apex of contemporary visual art. Through a variety of agendas
and artistic disciplines, body, personal experience and emotions
collide with megacity’s cool vistas and estranged conduct. Work
will be exhibited at the Gallery MC with the opening reception on
Thursday, February 23rd, from 7 to 9 PM and will run through Wednesday, March 2nd 2006.
The Doors Art Foundation is pleased to announce that a very special
guest from Croatia, Mr. Branko Franceschi will attend the opening
reception
Gallery MC is located at 549 W 52nd Street, between
10th and 11th avenue, 8th floor. Gallery will be open to public Monday
– Sunday from 11 to 6 pm.
The exhibition has been sponsored by the Heathcote Art Foundation/FACE Croatia, City of Rijeka, Auxano Inc. and Jana.
For any questions about the exhibition, please contact: Daniela Urem at 212.757. 7449 or [email protected]
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Branko Franceschi
was born in Zadar, Croatia in 1959. From 1987 to 2004 he was a program
director at the gallery Miroslav Kraljevic in Zagreb. Since 2004 he’s
been an executive director of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art
in Rijeka, Croatia (www.mmsu.hr). Trained as an Art Historian at the
University of Zagreb, in 1987 he initiated and curated hundreds of
exhibitions of contemporary art for the gallery Miroslav Kraljevic and
other spaces in Croatia and beyond. His diverse background includes
online works, newspaper articles, art reviews and periodicals, TV and
radio broadcasting.
He initiated, managed and coordinated a
residency for Croatian artists at PS1 from 2001-2005 in New York and
cultural exchanges between Croatia/USA and Croatia/Great Britain. He
produced TV segments for Croatian Television on the contemporary art
scenes in London and New York. In 2001 Branko worked with New Media
Scotland on Blind Date, an exchange project involving six artists from
Croatia and Scotland.
Member of AICA (Board of AICA Croatia), ICOM, CIMAM, DPUH, Advisory Committee of ArtsLink.
ARTISTS’ BIOS
Ante Bozanich
Working in a relative obscurity and on an intimate scale, Ante
Bozanich has produced a powerful body of psychodramatic work
exploring the exile of the self in a contemporary culture. Born in
Croatia, he immigrated to the United States in 1967 and began working
in video in 1974 while living in Los Angeles. Bozanich’s work reflects
the influence of performance and body art on the Southern California
video art of the sixties. His early works feature visceral
confrontations with the camera; the artist uses the instantaneous and
intimate nature of video production as a psychodramatic construct.
Bozanich’s psychic power treatment and his ability to reach in his
inner depth is what distinguishes his work from others. Advancing his
deeply personal and sometimes primal character in his work, his later
tapes continue to illuminate his interior haunts with courageous
acuity. Writing in Video 80,
artists Bruce and Norman Yonemoto state that Bozanich’s personal
existential vision foreshadowed the nihilism of punk and
neo-expressionism. His works "embody Antonin Artaud’s obsession with
art that is at once ‘violent, insulting, dangerous and
self-destructive.’ " Bozanich was born 1949 in Vis, Croatia. He
received a B.A., an M.A. and an M.F.A. from the University of
California, Los Angeles. He received grants from the National Endowment
for the Arts and the Ford Foundation. Bozanich’s tapes have been
exhibited internationally at festivals and institutions including the
Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles; Palais des Beaux-Arts,
Brussels; Hare Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Long Beach Museum of
Art, California; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Artspace, San
Francisco; San Francisco International Video Festival; Image Forum,
Tokyo; and the American Film Institute’s National Video Festival, Los
Angeles. Bozanich lives in New York.
Predrag Dubravcic
Born
in Zagreb, June 8th 1965. He received a B.A. in cinematography, Academy
of Dramatic Arts, Zagreb University, Croatia, 1984 – 1989.
In 1989 Predrag moves to NYC as a print photographer – starts shooting film again in ’94.
Awards: Festo 2001 for best commercial cinematography, Columbia University Film Festival
Cinematography. In 1985, Dubravcic has his first solo exhibit of "pure
photography" which tries to remove all outside elements from the
photographic media (i.e. this is not an image of a subject but rather
an image by itself). In 1988. Predrag writes a theoretical work "On
Composition" complementing his ongoing output of images. He had 14 solo
exhibitions, and numerous group shows in Croatia and US. His most
recent shows include NYC Soho Photo Gallery and Ringwood Manor, NJ.
Vlatka Horvat
received
her MA in 1997. Her MA final paper was entitled "Feigning to Forget:
Forging Fictions of Identity in Post-Communist Croatia." Since 2000
Vlatka has primarily been working in the visual art context – working
in a range of media, from video and photography to installation and
text-based pieces. Many of her works are performance-based and often
deal with a notion of a task, action, and enactment. Vlatka’s work has
recently been shown at exhibitions and festivals in Germany, France,
Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, and the US. She lives
in New York.
Bozidar Jurjevic is a performance and video artist
whose work has been included in the Clemont Ferrard Video Festival
(2002) and in Body and the East, Exit Art, New York, (2001).
Recent
performances include Performance Freedom, Zagreb, Croatia and Let the
Light Shine over the Home, Rijeka, Croatia.
Zlatko Kopljar Born
on March 5th 1962 in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Graduated painting
in 1991 with Professor Zotti from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice,
Italy.
Lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia
Kristian Kozul (1975,
Munich, Germany) lives and works in Zagreb and New York. Kozul attended
the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1993 and he transferred to the
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf where he graduated in 2002. Kozul received his
first recognition as a video artist, however his late oeuvres consist
of elaborate metaphorical objects. Kozul has participated at the
numerous exhibitions both in Croatia and abroad and is considered one
of the most intriguing Croatian artists of his generation.
Andreja Kuluncic (1968.
Subotica, Serbia and Montenegro) lives and works in Zagreb. She
graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts and Design in Belgrade in
1992 and completed her postgraduate studies at the Hungarian Academy of
Fine Arts in Budapest. Kuluncic participated at the numerous
international exhibition such as Liverpool Biennial (UK 2004), the 8th
Istanbul Biennial (Turkey, 2003), The American Effect at Whitney
Museum, (New York, 2003), Translocations, an on-line exhibition by
Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, 2003), Documenta 11 (Kassel, 2002),
Manifesta 4 (Frankfurt/Main, 2002) and other numerous group and solo
exhibitions in Croatia and abroad.
Kristina Leko was born in 1966,
Zagreb, Croatia. She is a visual and video artist, a writer who
addresses a variety of issues ranging from political to intimate ones.
Her works include actions in public space and intimate biography-based
works. Leko works on communication and documentary projects in
collaboration with various social groups. In 2001, she exhibited on
Sarajevo International, a video-communication project in collaboration
with twelve Sarajevo immigrants. In 2002/03 Leko did a project “On Milk
and People” where she collaborated with Croatian and Hungarian farmer
families. Her “Cheese and Cream” is a serial of actions and artifacts
dedicated to protection of the milkmaids of Zagreb. In 2002 Leko
exhibited “Mes objets trouves” – a collection of everyday objects with
historical references. Leko marked her 1992 year with her “Visualy
Based Perception Training” , a serial of public installations and
workshops, Verfassungskorrekturbuerro – an action in progress
correcting and improving the USA Constitution, 2004
Leo Modrcin is a New York based architect of Croatian
origin. A graduate of Architectural School, University of Zagreb and
Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, Leo has worked as an architect
in both the US and Croatia. His projects were honored at many
architectural competitions, including the first prize at the 1997
Membrane Design Competition in Japan, for a conceptual project for the
destroyed Old Bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Modrcin’s
projects and writings are widely published. Beside architectural
practice, he is also active in architectural pedagogy. With the
renowned architect Lebbeus Woods and the Research Institute for
Experimental Architecture (RIEA) he taught at the Borderline
Architectural Workshop in Kraljevica, Croatia in 1997.
Dario Solman studied
at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia and received his MFA
from the Ohio State University. He participated in the P.S. 1
International Studio Program, the Cimelice Castle residency program in
the Czech Republic and has taken part in group shows in Alexandria
Bienalle, Egypt; Melbourne, Australia; Zagreb, Croatia; as well as
various other venues in New York and elsewhere in the U.S.
Sandra Sterle (1965,
Zadar, Croatia) lives and works in Split. She graduated from the
Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1989 and continued her studies at
Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf 1995 – 1996. Sterle has exhibited
internationally since 1995 and gained reputation as a multimedia artist
by participating at numerous exhibitions: Capital & Gender (Skopje,
2001), To Tell a Story (Zagreb, 2001), Here Tomorrow (Zagreb, 2002), In
den Schluchten des Balkan (Kassel, 2003). In 2001 Sandra Sterle
produced go_HOME, an internet and streaming project with Danica Dakic.
Her works are included in mayor retrospectives of Croatian video art
such as Frame by Frame, Personal Cinema Program, Insert, as well as A
Short History of Dutch Video Art. Since 2002 Sterle has been a senior
lecturer at the New Media Department of the Art Academy in Split,
Croatia.
Olja Stipanovic was
born in Pula, Croatia where she started her art education. She moved to
New York in 1992. She earned her BFA (painting) in 1998, and MFA
(painting) in 2000, from the Parsons School of Design – The New School
University, New York. For the past 5 years she has been the resident of
Long Island City where her studio is located. Her work has been
exhibited in various group shows in New York City and abroad
Goran Tomcic was
born in Croatia, and has been living in the United States since 1991.
After receiving his M.A. in Curatorial Studies at the Center for
Curatorial Studies, Bard College, he served as curator of contemporary
art at the Miami Dade College, and Allen Art Museum, Oberlin College,
Ohio. He is a published poet and an exhibited artist, and has written
extensively on art for various publications.
Ksenija Turcic was
born 1963 in Zagreb, Croatia. Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts
(Prof. Ferdinand Kulmer) in Zagreb in 1987. She went on to study
painting with Prof. Joseph Kosuth at the organization Fondazione
Antonio Ratti in Como, Italy in 1995. She lives in Zagreb.
Mio Vesovic Born in 1953 in Gornja Dobrinja,
Croatia. He graduated from the Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in
Zagreb, Croatia. Since the early 70s Vesovic’s journalistic photographs
have been published in many established European newspapers and
magazines. Since 1979, Vesovic has been showing his photographic works
in galleries and over hundred of his works have been included in the
collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb. In 1979 he
started Studio MO with Ivan Posavec. Vesovic lives and works in Zagreb,
Croatia.
Danijel Zezelj is a graphic artist and illustrator and
author of more than twenty graphic novels. His comics and illustrations
appeared in magazines and anthologies in Croatia, Slovenia, England,
Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the USA.
His work has
been published by DC Comics/Vertigo, Marvel Comics, The New York Times
Book Review, Harper’s Magazine, San Francisco Guardian, Washington
Chronicle, etc.
Since 1997 Danijel created a series of multimedia performances in
collaboration with musician/composer Jessica Lurie. The performances
premiered in Italy, USA and Croatia. He lives and works between
Brooklyn and Zagreb.
For more information please visit www.doors-art.com
