Johannes Rauchenberger AUSLÖSCHUNG | ERASION Die Kunst von Zlatko Kopljar | The Art of Zlatko Kopljar 23,5 x 20 cm, 176 Seiten, 160 Farbabb., Softcover € 35,–
At a time of threatening socio-political changes, deeply felt crises and new wars, the work of Croatian artist Zlatko Kopljar stands for an artistic example of an ethical and aesthetic (re)orientation: ERASION revolves around an œuvre that fights with verve against the loss of memory and at the same time, by drilling deep into existential questions, opens up designs for resistance, communication and transcendence.
Johannes Rauchenberger is an art historian, curator of contemporary art and holds a PHD in theology. He has been director of the KULTUMUSEUM Graz and has taught contemporary art and religion at the universities of Vienna and Graz for 20 years. The majority of the works described in this book are now part of the collection of contemporary art and religion that Rauchenberger has built up in the form of exhibitions shown over the last 25 years. He describes Kopljar’s multi-layered oeuvre as the lasting after-effects of the traumas of the 20th century and updates it for the present day.
The artistic practice of Zlatko Kopljar, born in 1962 in Zenica in what was then Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina), has a relentless leitmotif: ‘What role does the artist play in today’s society? What role can he play?’ In 1991, he completed his studies at the Department of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, which also signalled the beginning of Croatia’s war of independence in the disintegrating Yugoslavia. From then on, he developed a consistent, multidisciplinary practice in which he worked alternately in the fields of sculpture, architectural intervention, performance, photography, video and experimental cinema. From 1997 to 2019, he exclusively developed ‘constructions’, 22 in total. Since 2021, he has devoted himself exclusively to painting. Kopljar’s artistic practice is permeated by a social and institutional critique with an open outcome: he has a special sensorium for rituals and silence and transforms his personal artist self into universal metaphors. ‘Erasion’ – the theme of this book – is a central leitmotif of his art: he tackles the loss of memory in dealing with guilt and responsibility with verve. He still believes in the subject. In his mature work of recent years, however, ‘erasure’ becomes more of a mystical iconoclasm, which holds open both the points of invention of the sublime and the ‘disturbances’ of the present.
Zlatko Kopljar represented Croatia at the São Paulo Biennial in 2004 and has had solo exhibitions in Croatia and abroad, including Zagreb, Ljubljana, Prague, New York, Graz, Venice, Berlin, Cologne and Antwerp, among others. Recent group shows include Sanguine: Luc Tuymans on Baroque, Fondazione Prada, Milan; Faith Love Hope, Kunsthaus Graz; Luc Tuymans, A Vision of Central Europe – The Reality of The Lowest Rank, Bruges. His works are included in significant private and museum collections. Zlatko Kopljar lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia.
Zlatko Kopljar was first exhibited at KULTUM in 2007 with the photo series ‘K9-Compassion’ in the show ‘Gestures of Infinity’ (KULTUM im Priesterseminar, steirischer herbst), followed by the solo exhibition ‘Light Tower’ with ‘K12’ and ‘K13’ at steirischer herbst 2009, which also resulted in a catalogue. With the exhibition ‘MITLEID | compassion’ (2012), his series ‘K9—Compassion’ found its way into the collection of the KULTUMdepot Graz, with ‘Glaube Liebe Hoffnung’ (2018) ‘Reliquary’ became part of the KULTUMdepot. With this exhibition at steirischer herbst 2024, Zlatko Kopljar is handing over his entire body of multimedia works to KULTUMUSEUM Graz.