2018
Extensions, 2018
Solo exhibition at MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, part of the Kožarić Studio “Laboratory for Reviving” exhibition cycle
Curated by Radmila Iva Jankovic.
–
From the press release:
“Laboratory for Reviving” exhibition cycle has been held every year since the Kožarić Studio moved from Medulićeva Street to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Artists or curators present projects that find an origin, inspiration or a link in the rich holdings of the Kožarić Studio. Always willing to start from the beginning, using dynamic processes of transforming “garbage into gold” and vice versa in order to strip his own works of the aura of untouchability; the artefacts in Kožarić’s Studio often got a chance at a new life.
In the performative gestures of Vlatka Horvat, which are often enacted in situ, through the ever shifting dynamic relations between architecture, the body and objects, but also speaking to a wider context, it will not be difficult to recognize points of connection, even resonance. The works in the exhibition Extensions – as well as many of the artist’s earlier ensembles – were mostly created using rejected, dysfunctional items. “By modifying and adapting these found objects it is as if I’m extending their expiry date, whilst at the same time literally spatially extending or repeating some element of their form, or some aspect of the space they occupy,” says the artist. “I am drawn to the ways in which objects ‘improved’ in this way embody a kind of a paradox – they are extended or enlarged in space, but this process of expansion simultaneously compromises their function, transforming them from usable, ‘useful’ items into puzzling objects caught in the processes of concurrent fragmentation and multiplication.” The purpose of these performative gestures is a transformation that creates a certain tension and activates imaginative processes in multiple directions, both emotional and associative. Objects that were in their former life associated with acts and conditions of ascent, rest, fitting-in and adapting… through these artistic gestures which emphasise some of their key spatial or functional features using a set of witty do-it-yourself strategies, appear here as absurd reminders of an almost existential state of stuckness, marked by an inability to hold on to things or to put them in order, so that we may finally get going, or else, stop.
Realized with the financial support of the City of Zagreb.
–
Works in the show:
Through Which to Look, 2017
Wooden frames, plastic foil, packaging foam, tape
In Which to Carry Water, 2017
Metal and plastic buckets, rope, corrugated cardboard
With Which to Cover, 2017
Retex polypropylene, tape
Where a Body Might Rest, 2017
Chairs, corrugated cardboard, wooden sticks, metal rod, PVC pipe, tape
On Which to Climb, 2017
Wooden ladder, foam
Secret Entrance, 2017
String, rope, tape
Protruding Corner, 2017
Paper, tape
Disturbances (Dig Lines), 2014
Cradled wooden panel, polypropylene, permanent marker, acrylic gel
Disturbances (Scratch Lines), 2014
Cradled wooden panel, acrylic gel, aluminium foil
Disruption (Tied Lines), 2016
Gessoed cradled wooden panel, cotton string, acrylic gel
Disruption (Scattered Lines), 2016
Cradled wooden panel, acrylic gel, polypropylene, acrylic
Frame Shift, 2016
Gessoed cradled wooden panel, corrugated cardboard, electrical tape, acrylic gel
Ragged Edge, 2017
Cradled Claybord panel, acrylic gel, corrugated cardboard
–
Press:
Rezervoar korespondencija (link / pdf) – June 2018: “Svijet iza nas.” Review by Klaudio Štefančić of Vlatka Horvat: Extensions at Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (in Croatian).
Elle magazine (pdf) – Feb 2018: “Tri lica umjetnica: Andreja Kulunčić, Vlatka Horvat, Hrvoslava Brkušić.” Feature by Ana Fazekaš (in Croatian).