31.3.2014
On Friday 28 March, the exhibition T-HT@MSU contemporary Croatia art award was opened in the Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU) in Zagreb. For the seventh year in a row, the exhibition offers an overview of the new artistic creation.
The exhibition was opened by deputy mayor Ms. Vesna Kusin, on behalf of the Zagreb mayor, Mr. Milan Bandić, who said that the exhibition is an excellent example of cooperation between the business and culture that serves not only to induce originality, but also to stimulate creativity and knowledge. She also welcomed future cooperation and emphasized that the City of Zagreb would always support such project relevant for preserving the vitality of the cultural scene.
Ms. Snježana Pintarić, the President of the committee of experts and director of MSU, thanked to all cooperators, especially to the T-Hrvatski Telekom as the main partner of MSU and expressed her hope for the future successful cooperation, relying on the success and high quality of the exhibition that is taking place for the seventh year in a row.
The leitmotiv of the seventh edition of the T-HT@MSU exhibition is the transdisciplinary production and artist’s awareness of a process of creation within a crisis-affected globalized economy, politics and culture. In terms of the topics, the exhibition has a wide spectrum, because the contest is, this time as well, used for analysis and perception of the current situation on the domestic scene. Since it is not an exhibition with a predefined framework, and considering a high percentage of high-quality works of art applied for the contest every year, we can freely say that this exhibition represents a relevant overview of the current situation in the Croatian contemporary art where all generations of artists are equally presented. The response of artists this year has been exceptional – 203 works of art were applied, 21 of which have been presented on the exhibition.
As every year, the committee of experts invited three acknowledged artists and two artistic pairs to participate with their work directly in both the exhibition and the contest. These artists were: Sandra Vitaljić, with her work Voljena, Vedran Perkov with Broadway Boogie-Woogie, Davor Vrankić with Silent Dancer, then Ligtune.G with a luminoacustic installation Lighterature Reading, Chapter 11 and Žižić/Kožul with 0,50.
The sixteen works of art that were judged by the committee of experts are predominantly videos and installations: Goran Škofić (Jezero), Neli Ružić (Bez riječi), Alen Floričić (Bez naziva No. 1/13), Mirjana Vodopija (Mogućnost, volja, odluka, djelovanje) and multimedia installations that combine video and photography as in the case of Luiza Margan (Anatomija naklonva) or Silvestar Kolbas (Kino Crvena zvezda), or sculpture and video as in the case of Nikola Bojić (Praznina u ulici Felton) and Igor Ruf (Medvjedolav). The ambiental installation of Silvo Šarić Crna slika/Rozeta consists of a projection of a black circle to a black circular canvas, which creates an ambience where the bodies of observers can be “deleted” for a moment. Marko Marković exhibits his family gold in his installation Produkcija nasljedstva, which Sebastian Dračić presents an apocalyptic scenario in his work Götterdämmerung. The authors who are participating in T-HT@MSU exhibition for the first time chose different media: Ana Vuzadrić presented an audio-visual installation Hertaformiranje, Iva Gobić made books from marketing leaflets for her installation Home Library, Ivana Dražić Selmani created delicate drawings of 3 x 4 cm in her cycle Na Dančama, and Tonka Maleković presented a participating social and artistic project created in a Zagreb quarter Trnje called Krugovi u vrtu.
A specialty of this year’s opening ceremony was a performance by Vlasta Žanić called Recycle Bin, where the author re-created several old performances in Gorgona hall of MSU. The performance-related documentation will be displayed as a part of the collection during the period of the exhibition.
The committee of experts will gather again during the period of the exhibition and they will decide which 3 works of art meet strict demands of this specific exhibition and present them acquisition prizes. However, this exhibition allows the audience to choose as well! The audience award will be granted upon closing of the exhibition to the work of art that collected the highest number of visitors’ votes. The luckiest voter will get Samsung Galaxy Note Tab 10.1.
The exhibition will be opened by 27 April this year, and the awards will be presented on 25 April. The acquired works of art will become a part of the future T-HT@MSU collection.