K20 Empty

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Mali Salon, Rijeka, Croatia, 11-20.09.2015., curated by Slaven Tolj / Gallery Island, Dubrovnik, Croatia, curated by Slaven Tolj / Gallery Greta, Zagreb, Croatia, curated by David Lušić

Texts in the book by: Ivana Mance and Žarko Paić

Ivana Mance, Empty

Although presented in slightly unexpected forms, the works from the new series by Zlatko Kopljar,Empty, do not shift away from his basic and well-recognized artistic preoccupation. Whatever the subject matter of his works or projects may be, and regardless of whether it is a performance, video-film or another media form, Kopljar’s concern, or to be more precise, his uneasiness about the fate of art and artists in contemporary society always seems to prevail over any other thematic category that enables discussions on a work of art or its identification in the context of contemporary art production. We may reasonably argue that every work of art has a dimension of meta-language, or meta-discourse, for exploring the existing paradigms of understanding art. However, in Kopljar’s work, this inherently philosophical thought is intentionally placed in central position. Moreover, often presented in colossal shapes or expressed in a gesture of pathos, or even directly communicated with the artist’s own body in its strength or helplessness, this grave thought about art and its existence leaves little room for conversations about anything else. 

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K19, promotion of the book

HDLU, 04.02.2014., Published by: SNV, Zlatko Kopljar, texts by Ory Dessau and Žarko Paić

Ory Dessay

Artist Zlatko Kopljar was invited to present his vertical-rectangular brick structures in the circular space of The Barrel Gallery in Zagreb. The structures are made with a particular kind of bricks, manufactured during World War Two in Jasenovac camp, outside Zagreb, by prisoners. After the war the people from the surrounding villages were taking those bricks and used them as building blocks for their houses. Eventually, Kopljar decided to keep the space empty and constructed the structures, brick by brick, in front of the building, around the fountain. The following text is written in the form of a personal letter, which I delivered to Kopljar on the evening of the opening.   

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K19

Trg Žrtava fašizma, HDLU, 17.01.-07.02.2014.

In an essay written for new work of Zlatko Kopljar, K19, Žarko Paić, in the context of Adorno, Badiou and Lyotard, ask a question: Can contemporary art provide a possibility for man’s redemptive reversal? How and when does it become legitimate to open the possibilities of facing the question of boundaries between the sublime and the evil if just turning

history into a museum issue at the time of techno-science visualizes everything that took place as artifact and information in databases? The seal on the procedures of truth is put by a third party. The utterance does not include a naïve illusion about yielding the history to neutral historiographical science.

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