The Challenge of Modernity. Zagreb – Vienna around 1900
February 9 – May 7, 2017
The Klovićevi dvori Gallery, Zagreb
The works of Ivan Meštrović from the holdings of the Meštrović Gallery in Split and Atelier Meštrović in Zagreb can be seen at the exhibition The Challenge of Modernity. Zagreb – Vienna around 1900 at the Klovićevi dvori Gallery in Zagreb from 9 February to 7 May 2017. The exhibition presents about one hundred key works of Austrian and Croatian artists who formed a new artistic expression in painting, sculpture and architecture within the European fin de siècle at the turn of the 19th century. In this overview, the early work of Ivan Meštrović, who made some of his most important masterpieces during his studies at the Vienna Academy, is imperative.
The exhibition “The Challenge of Modernity: Zagreb – Vienna around 1900” will present the works of protagonists of the Secession from Zagreb and Vienna in the field of painting, sculpture and architecture for the first time. The exhibition will also allow a comparison of the works of Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Karl Moll with the works of Vlaho Bukovac, Tomislav Krizman, Ivan Meštrović and many others. The comparisons between Vienna and Zagreb architecture through the achievements of Otto Wagner, Josef Hofmann, Adolf Loos and Vjekoslav Bastl, Aladar Baranyai or Viktor Kovačić will be eloquent.
The exhibition will show the rise of a new generation of women painters who become equal participants in modern change. Antonija Krasnik and Nasta Rojc learned to paint in Vienna, while Slava Raškaj also worked under the influence of the Viennese Secession. Themes common to Viennese and Zagreb culture at the turn of the century were discussed through the aforementioned art branches: themes about the meaning of man’s existence, landscapes intertwined with the artist’s subjective experience of nature, coffee houses as new forums for exchanging ideas, and the theme of women as the ultimate motif of the period. The “gesamtkunstwerk” period is characterized by a way of life that is permeated with art that unites all segments of man’s life: from the interior in which he dwells to the exterior surrounding him. (Vugrinec, P., www.gkd.hr)
Exhibitions
