Exhibition history

Nina Kurtela :

23.01.2025. - 09.03.2025. / MSU, Black Box

Entering Jagoda Kaloper’s former studio inspired Nina Kurtela to embark on multi-related and concomitant activities. One of the approaches to the symbolically inherited ‘room of her own’ is her project under the title Jagoda: Spaces of the Invisible, on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in the Triggers cycle.

The Smell of Freshly Chopped Wood

19.12.2024. - 23.02.2025. / MSU, 2. kat povremenih izložbi

The exhibition The Smell of Freshly Chopped Wood tells about our life, work and belonging to specific landscapes, forests, islands, plateaus and valleys of Balkans and Mediterranean region, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italy, which at first sight look like idyllic nature. In fact, they are "living archives" whose "documents" are trees marked for felling, artificial lakes, objects left behind by refugees or the memories of the people who live there, their traditions, knowledge and experiences. We experience nature only through our presence and our activities: nature is wood for cutting, water for hydroelectric power plants, wind for windmills, animals for hunting, plants and fruits for our food, or the routes of our transport routes.

Dancing, Resisting, (Un)working – Aspects of Dance as Cultural, Political, and Art Work in Yugoslavia and After

20.11.2024. - 23.02.2025. / MSU, 1. kat povremenih izložbi

This exhibition represents long-term research on the development of a digital archive of contemporary dance and performing arts of the post-Yugoslavian region. As that is an ongoing process, we do not think of this manifestation as a final act or actualization of the material, but as a step towards sharing the relations we are building with the materials. We are showing it as a(n) (un)working material, as a research space that is in its potentiality, not being there yet, or finished.

Divided Time: Cries and Whispers / The Imitation of Life Studio 1987–1991

07.11.2024. - 12.01.2025. / MSU, Black Box

Thirty-three years following the end of their collaboration, the artistic duo Darko Fritz and Željko Serdarević present themselves with the exhibition Divided Time at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, which brings together their joint artistic production consisting of fine artworks, the documentation of installations in public space, and music and stage performances.

Jelena Janković: 8th Floor

24.10.2024. - 20.11.2024. / Zbirka Richter

The exhibition 8^th Floor combines the architectural heritage of Zagrebian skyscrapers in the district of Vrbik, popularly known as Rockets, and the introspective insight and visual poetics of photographer Jelena Janković. Vrbik Residential Towers, built in 1968 according to the project of the architectural bureau Centar 51, symbolise the urban development of Zagreb and combine brutalist aesthetics with functional modernist architecture. Even though this heritage is recognised by the wider public today as an influential creation of architect Vjenceslav Richter – hence the moniker Richter’s Skyscrapers – his collaborators on this project were also Berislav Šerbetić, Ljubo Iveta, and Olga Koržinek. 

MARKO TADIĆ : THE KITCHEN

12.09.2024. - 24.11.2024. / MSU, 2. kat

Marko Tadić’s exhibition, as part of the Kožarić Studio - Reviving Lab Cycle, is also part of the Triggers Cycle, in which artists, activists, communities or associations, each in their own way, interpret museum collections. 

The links between Marko Tadić and Ivan Kožarić are profound. Tadić, just like Kožarić, perceives his own work as a large abstract archive that speaks of itself mainly through the whole. Furthermore, he also underlines other components of Kožarić’s approach that meant a lot to him as an artist, namely, the overlapping of living and exhibition spaces, and treating the entire spectrum of material objects as art tools. Still, the deepest connection between them as artists is the constant urge to explore the world around them through play.  

Jonas Staal: PROPAGANDA STATION

05.09.2024. - 20.10.2024. / MSU, Black Box

Propaganda is often presented as a relic from the totalitarian past. Only in the case of contemporary dictatorships, such as those of Putin or Kim Jong-un, is the term still used. But as the project Propaganda Station by artist and propaganda researcher Jonas Staal shows, democracy is not free from propaganda either.

Possibilities for ’24 – Marta Katavić: Where Every Ordinary Activity Is Extraordinary

04.07.2024. - 18.08.2024. / MSU, Black Box

In the fourth year of implementing the Possibilities project, we are presenting the exhibition Where Every Ordinary Activity Is Extraordinary by painter Marta Katavić. The Possibilities project was launched by the MSU curator Leila Topić in association with Zagreb’s Academy of Fine Arts with the aim of strengthening the exchange of knowledge and making new relationships between curators, artists and audience, making it easier for up-and-coming artists to remain in the professional field. The members of this year’s work group, which decided on the selection of artists in deliberative conversations and discussions, are Ivan Slipčević, Josip Zanki and Vlasta Žanić, professors at the Academy of Fine Arts, young independent curator Renata Šparada, and MSU curator and concept author Leila Topić.

Goran Trbuljak If I Were an Artist, I Would Be a Genius*

02.07.2024. - 08.09.2024. / MSU, 1. i 2. kat povremenih izložbi

Goran Trbuljak, one of Croatia’s most significant conceptual artists, has never entered the new building of the MSU until this exhibition. Following a re-invitation to hold an exhibition, he decided to accept it, but only after thoroughly elaborating his ‘pro’ and ‘con’ arguments with a text which he self-published last year: “Some thoughts and doubts on the topic of my current and potential future relationship with the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb”.

Mutual Presence

19.06.2024. - 02.08.2024. / Galerija Art&CeRZe

For the first time, the exhibition Mutual Presence will showcase works by artists from the Collection of Outsider Art of the Museum of Contemporary Art alongside the works of artists with intellectual disabilities who are active within the inclusive gallery Art & CeRZe, Centre for Rehabilitation Zagreb. Although it is still not fully socially accepted in our country to exhibit artists without formal art education, let alone the artists who are users of the Rehabilitation Centre, within conventional exhibition spaces, this exhibition aims to show that art has always pushed boundaries, both in the perception of art itself, as well as in the acceptance of diversity.