The 12th International Festival Organ Vida opens on June 29 at the Zagreb's Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb with the main exhibition – No Tears Left to Cry and a solo exhibition of Vivian Sassen
The 12th International Organ Vida Festival will take place from June 29th to August 28th at the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Miroslav Kraljević Gallery (GMK) and Gallery Nova. The Biennial Festival brings together contemporary artists working in the medium of photography and / or in its expanded form and opens on June 29th at 8 p.m. at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb with the main exhibition No Tears Left to Cry with works by ten finalists selected by an expert jury composed of: Agnieszka Roguski, curator and writer from Berlin, Antonio Cataldo, curator and writer from Oslo, Ivana Meštrov, curator from Zagreb, Jen Kratochvil, curator and critic from Prague and Vienna, and Lovro Japundžić, curator from Zagreb; and with a solo exhibition by the esteemed and award-winning artist Viviane Sassen, who will present a series of photographs and collages Venus & Mercury created from the rich archives of the French castle of Versailles.
12th Organ Vida: main exhibition No Tears Left to Cry
In its new edition, the Organ Vida festival focuses various manifestations of feelings in contemporary society and presents artworks that deal with prevailing negative feelings such as anxiety or apathy, but also works that represent affective alternatives, explore and / or imagine different affective dimensions of utopia, dystopia, imagination and fantasies. The exhibition No Tears Left To Cry presents ten artistic projects that tackle various manifestations of emotions in contemporary society. In her work Fugues, Nicole Maria Winkler deals with the desire to control chaos and with the attempt to restore stability in everyday life. Using everyday objects, organic and inorganic substances, the artist shapes wondrous compositions that form a soothing microcosm and offer an escape from the familiar, suffocating, or oppressive constellations. In his work Renaissance, Nils Stelte also identifies stress as a social symptom. Through a series of photographs, he presents a number of rituals and tactics used by individuals in urban areas to overcome stress and personal crises. The work Cool To Cry by artist Marin Håskjold focuses on living conditions during the pandemic and also explores how to collectively deal with feelings of loneliness and isolation and how to overcome apathy.
For artist Anna Vallejo, the pandemic was also the trigger for dealing with her own ailments – love addiction and the pathology of idealizing unavailable men. She seeks to demystify the traditional concept of romantic love and deconstruct the established patterns of attachment in romantic relationships. On the other hand, Sara Pukanić and Filip Vest explore how contemporary romantic relationships are shaped by virtual patterns of behavior. While in her work You Have Been Seen Sara Pukanić discusses the consequences of ghosting, an abrupt and unwanted termination of contact with a romantic partner, Filip Vest in his installation and performance Bed Made to Look Like Body turns off his cell phone while waiting for a date to avoid the possibility of ghosting. Even though these works are intimate in principle, they are also critical of unavailability, lack of interest and non-communication as frequent features of contemporary interpersonal relationships and they emphasize the importance of open communication about (one's own) vulnerability.
The main exhibition also features Mara Jenny’s project accessory for a hidden track that deals with the possibilities of representing trans subjectivity and corporeality and Ezra Šimek’s educational video essay Do They / Thems Like Flowers or Do I Buy Platform Shoes and Tarot Cards? that criticizes the gender binary as a fundamental organizational principle of gender in society, but also emphasizes the potential for emancipation.
The works of Yosi Negrin and Naomi Moonlion explore and imagine alternatives to the anxious capitalist reality. In Rarearth, Yosi Negrin shows the general lack of control and aimlessness of life through the prism of ecological devastation. In Fever Dreams of a Hermit, Naomi Moonlion gives a utopian answer to the widespread crisis – the denial, inaccessibility, and undemocratic nature of various forms of care under capitalism.
Curators: Barbara Gregov, Lovro Japundžić, Lea Vene.
Viviane Sassen: Venus & Mercury – untold stories of French Versailles
A solo exhibition of the artist Viviane Sassen Venus & Mercury will open at the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb on the same day as the leading festival exhibition, June 29th, at 8 p.m. The series of photographs, film, objects and collages Venus & Mercury was created as a result of six-month research conducted by the artist at the French Palace of Versailles. Sassen dived into the palace archives and used artifacts, architecture, sculptural fragments and even Marie-Antoinette's private correspondence to create a new work alluding to untold stories of Versailles. In making her own story, Sassen worked with a group of young women who grew up near the palace. At the same time, they appear and disappear as models in photographs that mix the ancient with the modern and the real with the fake.
Viviane Sassen is a Dutch artist who lives in Amsterdam and works equally in the world of fashion and fine arts. She is known for using geometric shapes and bright colors, an abstract, almost surreal depiction of the human body, and a combination of documentary and staged photography. In 2007, Sassen was awarded the Dutch Prix de Rome Art Prize, and in 2011 she won the Infinity Award of the International Center of Photography in New York for applied and fashion photography.
Just before the opening, Marina Paulenka, curator of the exhibition, will hold a conversation with the artist, starting at 7 p.m.
Additional festival program:
In addition to exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the 12th Organ Vida at the Miroslav Kraljević Gallery (GMK) presents a solo exhibition by French artist Thomas Cap De Ville INTERLOPE, which will open on June 30th and runs until July 15th. Since his adolescence, Thomas Cap De Ville has collected photographs, drawings and various objects which he has been organizing into a series of books called “Psychospores”. The codes of the generation of the 90s and early 2000s intertwine with intimate histories which involve emerging stories of friendship, sexuality, and vice.
Viviane Sassen exhibition curator: Marina Paulenka
Coortination for MSU: Vesna Meštrić, museum advisor
Festival continues its long-term cooperation with the Kassel Photobook Festival and presents a shortlist of Kassel Dummy Award photo books at GMK.
Group exhibition Tender points opens at Nova Gallery on July 1st and runs until July 16th and it features the works of four artists – Julie Faverau, Katarzyna Perlak, Margaret Haines and Fette Sans. They discuss uncertainty and insecurity, or rather affective disorientation as an essential feature of modernity, and critically look at different models of emotional togetherness, as well as opportunities to maintain and (re)construct intimacy.
In addition to the exhibition program, this year’s festival will host a workshop at Richter Collection by Cleo Kempe Towers, also known as Emotional Labor Queen, Berlin-based artist, writer and Jewitch. Towers works through power dynamics, ritual obsession, femme survival and astrological healing. Through installation, poetry and fabric, Towers aims to create a vessel, a space, an energetic field, a promise, or a lie. Prosperity, Luck, and Abundance – Yes to Claim is a workshop conceptualised as a guided path followed by the sound of positive affirmations.
The program is supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb - City Office for Culture, Zagreb Tourist Bord, Mondriaan Fonds, Netherlands Embassy in Zagreb
