27th November 2014 \u2013 10th January 2015<\/p>\n
The Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo announces Lightbearing Forms, the retrospective exhibition of Vojin Baki\u0107. The exhibition opens on Thursday, 27th November 2014 at 19 am.\u00a0 Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, the exhibition in Sarajevo is a result of the cooperation between the MSU and the Art Gallery of BiH, as well as financial support from the Foundation<\/em> Hrvatska ku\u0107a – Croatian House<\/em>, and<\/em> the City of Zagreb Municipal Office for Education, Culture and Sports. After Sarajevo the exhibition goes to the Museum of Contemporary Art of Republika Srpska, Banja Luka (22nd January \u2013 22nd February 2015). This touring retrospective is to commemorate the centennial of the birth of Vojin Baki\u0107, thus continuing a more intense interaction between related museum institutions in the cities of the region.<\/p>\n Vojin Baki\u0107’s Retrospective, Lightbearing Forms, which was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art from 7th December 2013 to 2nd March 2014, aroused a great interest of the public (16,500 visitors),\u00a0 the media and the profession. Described as the largest cultural event in Croatia in 2013, the exhibition was given the Croatian Museum Association’s Award for the Best Organized Exhibition in 2013. The exhibition will bring the BiH audience closer to an understanding of the achievements of his rich oeuvre. Baki\u0107’s creative activity encompassed the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and, in the modernization of expressions that he introduced into the areas of sculpture and monumental sculpture, we can clearly see the global phenomena of modernization that were present in the entire territory of socialist Yugoslavia.<\/b><\/p>\n It is not only that Vojin Baki\u0107 figures as one of the best Croatian sculptors of the last century, but international critics also recognise him as one of the most important European modernist sculptors. His work encompassed the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and, in the modernization of the expression, which he introduced in the area of sculpture and monumental sculpture, we can clearly see the global phenomena of modernization that were present in the entire territory of socialist Yugoslavia. Until then, his oeuvre was presented piecemeal, and the retrospective at the MSU presented the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s entire work. The retrospective was able to achieve an objective interpretation, and to offer a reading and understanding of the genesis of his abstract, expressive style that was intrinsically tied to the European modernist tradition. With an extraordinary power of vision and superb creation, in the early 1960\u2019s Vojin Baki\u0107 made a decisive breakthrough in the design of monumental sculpture on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia. He undertook this ideological task eliminating all narration and elevating sculpture to the level of a universal sign with the use of abstract language of high modernism. Also, Baki\u0107’s exhibition prompted many discussions on the fate of the National Liberation War monuments and our relationship to that heritage. All experts unanimously agree: ideological background aside, the artistic value of these works is timeless. It is exactly their abstract expression that exudes a powerful energy of sign\/symbol; they are purely aesthetic objects that summarize the collective and individual experience of history.<\/p>\n Vojin Baki\u0107 (1915-1992) was an artist of great creative energy who, during almost fifty years of creative work, produced a large number of works of exceptional artistic quality. His works were considered to be exceptionally innovative and progressive already at the time of their creation, and were included in major publications on contemporary international and European abstract sculpture. Vojin Baki\u0107 participated in many prestigious international exhibitions: the Venice Biennale, Documenta in Kassel, S\u00e3o Paulo Bienal, Alexandria Biennale, and many others. Starting from figuration and tradition, his expression evolved towards pure form, towards foliated and light, or, as the poet Jure Ka\u0161telan named them, lightbearing forms, towards abstraction devoid of unnecessary detail. According to Vojin Baki\u0107, such light forms express the joy of living, eruption, light. Humanism and affirmation of positive values apparent in his early figurative works remained symbolically present in his entirely abstract sculptures. His quest upon the light, welfare and progress belongs to the modernist utopia Baki\u0107 shared with his contemporaries who believed in a better and more humane world in the post-war Yugoslavia. He summed up the search that had a decisive impact on his creation in the following sentence, “Moving through the dark, searching for a cleft with light in, that is, for me, an authentic path…” During the course of fifty years of uninterrupted creative activity, Baki\u0107 generated a body of work that fully reflected his great intellectual and artistic commitment, and attained a pinnacle of achievement, in Croatian and European modernist sculpture. He died in Zagreb on 19 December 1992.<\/p>\n The exhibition in Sarajevo will display 175 works, including 110 sculptures representing all his creative periods, drawings, sketches, models of monuments, photographic enlargements, as well as audio and film material. At the same time, his work enables us to understand not only the social and political conditions in which he was creating, but also the life story of that exceptional artist. That sensitive, discrete and self-composed artist \u2018only\u2019 wanted to find his own path, by listening to his intuitive inner voice, “The only true development comes from the process of working. I do not believe in the theory that an artist is a God-given creature. I always feel a little bit stupid. A person has an idea, some kind of presentiment; it is a brief moment, sometimes exciting, like a sneaking suspicion… and when you try to realise it, you see that you are powerless, that you miss hundreds of elements. And then you start to palpitate, to run after it like a child until you catch it somewhere, if you have the strength to endure the race, the race for the unattainable…”<\/p>\n This exhibition will not only showcase Baki\u0107\u2019s sculptures but also the works of the artists involved with his monuments taking different positions, ranging from the interpretation of modernist heritage by Marko Luli\u0107 to the analysis of utopian models attributable to socialist society, our relation to such phenomena, various issues related to the collective loss of memory found in the works created by David Maljkovi\u0107 and Igor Grubi\u0107\u2019s critique of the way we tend to treat the monuments celebrating the National Liberation War.<\/p>\n The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive, bilingual catalogue, comprising texts written by a number of respected Croatian and foreign art historians and art critics. The texts are structured in two parts: the first part comprises texts written by authors exploring various aspects of Baki\u0107\u2019s oeuvre (Tonko Maroevi\u0107, Zvonko Makovi\u0107, Je\u0161a Denegri, Nata\u0161a Ivan\u010devi\u0107, Henry Meyric Hughes), the dialogue between contemporary artists and Baki\u0107\u2019s modernist heritage (Leila Topi\u0107) and the present situation with Baki\u0107\u2019s monuments in the post-Yugoslav context (Gal Kirn). The second part provides an overview of the most important texts published during the 1950s and the 1960s, as the interpretations of particular stages of Baki\u0107\u2019s development (Milan Prelog, Radoslav Putar, Vera Horvat Pintari\u0107, Bo\u017eo Bek).<\/p>\n Exhibition curator and catalogue editor: Nata\u0161a Ivan\u010devi\u0107, Chief Curator.<\/p>\n Visual display and collaboration on the exhibition: Ana Martina Baki\u0107 & Vjera Baki\u0107, Architects.<\/p>\n Coordination at the Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Ivana Udovi\u010di\u0107, Museum Advisor<\/p>\n Design of publications, exhibition visuals & souvenirs: Ira Payer & Andro Giunio of Super Studio 29<\/p>\n The exhibition was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb. Support for this guest exhibition has been generously provided by the Foundation Hrvatska ku\u0107a – Croatian House, and the City of Zagreb Municipal Office for Education, Culture and Sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 27th November 2014 \u2013 10th January 2015 The Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo announces Lightbearing Forms, the retrospective exhibition of Vojin Baki\u0107. 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