Exhibiting in Klovicevi Dvori Gallery December 2016 - ARThoc

c - Academy of Fine Arts in Klovićevi yard

ARThoc - Academy of Fine Arts in Klovićevi yard

 3rd 12th to 8th 1st 2017.   

Klovićevi  Dvori Gallery and the Academy of Fine Arts Univesity in Zagreb have the honour to invite you to the opening of the exhibition ARThoc in Saturday, December 3, 2016 at 12 am in the Klovićevi dvori , Jesuit Square 4, Zagreb.

Throughout December in the premises of the Klovićevi yard there will be a number of activities: exhibitions, workshops, educational and artistic activities and lectures, which will be held in the Klovićevi yard and the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb to establish a more intensive institutional cooperation.

ARThoc,  through professional setup and dynamic scheduling events with the audience, communicates selected works, projects, workshops and lectures of students, graduates and alumni Al and numerous associates.

The goal of the project is that the networking of our artistic and educational institutions to present to the public character of the diverse productions of young artists - students, graduates and alumni of the Academy of Fine Arts in order to further increase the visibility of student practice as an integral part of academic education in relation to the institutional spaces of our art world.

ARThoc can look to January 8, 2017. Entrance to all events is free. Welcome; we are looking forward to your arrival!

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday ( 14, 15 and 16 December 2016 ) of 19 to 21 hours as part of the exhibition " ARThoc " in Klovićevi yard will be ArtiParti , multi-year project of a group of students from the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts.

Above is the translated information as outlined on the website of the Klovicevi Dvori Gallery 

in Gradec in Zagreb.  An invitation was issued to students of Fine Art in the Academy to submit a proposal to participate in this exhibition.  I submitted an outline of my current work as part of my Erasmus project, called Blackberry Picking which comprised of three paintings. It is based on the poetry of Seamus Heaney, my English tutor many decades ago in Carysfort College.  His poetry is the inspiration for my exploration of the theme of memory, loss, relationships. My application was successful and one of my paintings, Battlfield,  was accepted for inclusion in the exhibition.  The exhibition was in two parts, the first selection of work was shown in the main Gallery from 3rd December to the 13th and the second part of the exhibition, including my work, ran from 20th December until 8th January. This was a wonderful opportunity to exhibit in this really lovely gallery.  

Battlefield    Oil on Canvas     175 x 135  cm

Battlefield on display in the main gallery.

Hallway entrance into the main gallery in Klovicevi Dvori Gallery

Other work on exhibition as part of the ARThoc exhibition 

the 

Exhibiting in Klovicevi Dvori Gallery in December 2016 - Part 1 - ARTIPARTI.

I was  invited to participate in two exhibitions in the Klovicevi Dvori Gallery in Zareb's beautiful Gradec area in the Old town in Zagreb.  This beautiful gallery, named after the sixteenth century Croatian artist, famous for his illumination of manuscripts, Juraj Julije Klovic [Giulio Clovio], is an eighteenth century building, built as a Jesuit monastery.  In 1982, the gallery came into being and has hosted many exhibitions since, the most recent being the work of the Croatian artist, Ignat Job. [to be reported on in another post].  The first exhibition, ArtiParti, took place on Wednesday, 14th to Friday 16th December, from 7-9pm each evening.

Klovicevi Dvori Gallery, Gradec.

Poster for the 2016 ARTIPARTI exhibition - 14th to 16th  December.

I had hoped to have had the background to this project, written in English and emailed to me during Christmas by one of the organisers but it hasn't been sent so I set about writing out the Croatian details as set out on the information sheet and translated it online to English.  It is not very clear so I will attempt to give my own version of the history of the project!  This initiative started about five years ago when Fine Art students from the Academy were invited to submit works to be displayed, originally in the home of  one of the organisers, themselves students at the academy.  The concept was to provide an informal setting for the students to display their work.   Three curators were then invited to select work from the submissions and to put together work that they considered related to their concept of how it should be displayed. The exhibition was held over three days with the selection of  each individual curator reflected with a different display of work each day.

This year, Artie Party was held  in the central room on the ground floor of the Kloviceva Dvora Gallery.  As with the previous events,  three curators will try to point out the diversity of student expression, or display environment in which students of the Academy of fine arts reside. The curators were Matija Hajdarhodzic, Fran Petricevic and Maja Ojevic, none of whom have a direct link with the Academy classes [except Maja, an actress who models regularly for the life drawing classes in the Academy]. Curators are selected because of personal interest or work in certain fields -  artists productions although this year, a medical doctor  with an innterest in creativity,  was involved. What distinguishes this project from the past is a way of presenting/setting up the works. All the logged papers will be set up in the Gallery against the edges of the room, while the centre of the space is taken up with a polygon made up of wire structure to exhibit two dimensional work and tables for sculptures and books. Space was obviously limited but this exhibition provided an alternative mode which reflected the need to offer different forms of thinking about the work offered for selection and take from the same units. .  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 19.00 to 21.00. Organisers of the exhibition were John Milicic, Andrej Tomic, Svan Radulovic Matica, Marino Milicic..

Wednesday night exhibition

First night of the exhibition.  My painting, spotted lurking in the background, is left with it's back to the wall.  That's ok.

A wire construct was placed in the centre of the  room with some work hung here and other pieces placed on a table.  

Paintings placed against the wall with sculptural and media pieces
located on the floor.  

Curator Matija Hajdarhodzic outlines his approach to his selection and arrangement of the work  but sadly, as he spoke in Croatian, it remain a mystery to me. 

Thursday Exhibition

My painting, The Dream, was selected for display by curator, Fran Petricevic on the central section.

Work by Katrin Radovan to the right.

An intriguing artists book. 

Drinks afterwards in the courtyard of Kloviceva Dvora gallery. on Thursday with Sven on the left, John Milicic [organiser]  and Katrin Radovani.

...and of course, we also had the pleasure of the company of Ivan Barunowsky too!

I didn't get to see the Friday arrangement of work.  This was an interesting experimental format for an exhibition and display of work but I'm not totally sure that there was sufficient space available in the room provided to adequately survey all the work.  Because of the language difference, I was at a loss to understand the choices made by the first curator and I felt that the central display wire construct was not amenable to perusal as the elements folded too closely together to allow free flow of  access.  Furthermore, it was not apparent what criteria this curator was employing, what themes he connected to each other and their links.

However, I think that the exhibition on the Thursday evening didn't need explanation as the work was clearly divided and displayed according to subject.  The theme of animals was the chosen arrangement of one area of the exhibition and included paintings, drawings and sculptures on this topic.  Figurative paintings constituted another selected area of work while the wire display mechanism was sensibly arranged to allow ease of access to view all the work.
This was a well thought out structural display and even the work that wasn't on display at the centre of the room still seemed to be accessible.  I think this experimental form of display is a refreshing alternative to standard modes of exhibition and provides a welcome diversion from the static and formal structures of the usual modus operandi.   It was great to be involved in this experimental venture and well done to the hard work by the organisers.