Neighbourhood Guide

Bela and Miroslav Krleža Memorial Space Archives

MIROSlAv kRlEžA Although the Miroslav Krleža Festival has just finished, you can always visit the writer’s Memorial Home or purchase a summer read in the form of his book ‘Journey to Russia’ that has recently been translated into English. Miroslav Krleža. Journey to Russia (Sandorf Passage; trans Will Firth) It may be almost a hundred years old, but this book by one of Croatia’s greatest writers has definitely been worth waiting for. Miroslav Krleža’s account of a trip to Bolshevik Russia undertaken in the 1920s is nothing short of a modern travel classic. Krleža was himself a communist and had a rather rosy-spectacled view of what Leninism meant in practice. However his book’s vivid, frequently critical descriptions of life in Russia under the new regime are both evocatively rendered and full of insight. The description of the journey itself, undertaken by rail across a Europe emerging cautiously from a period of war and revolution, is an exhilarating ride in itself. Above all it is a book filled with anxious Wanderlust; reading it in the midst of a pandemic will soon have you yearning to jump on a long-distance train. Walk up to the Bela and Miroslav Krleža Memorial Home in a green oasis of Tuškanac (Krležin Gvozd 23, Open Tue 11:00 - 17:00) sometime between 23 July and 30 September to visit the exhibition ‘In Life and Death – sketches from life of Bela and Miroslav Krleža’. The exhibition tries to ‘peek’ into the private life of a famous Croatian writer and his beloved wife behind the closed doors of a villa on Zagreb’s Gvozd. It discovers the more intimate side of their relationship, their social life and travels through archival sources, memoirs and newspaper articles. The Krleža couple marked the cultural and political life of Zagreb and former Yugoslavia at the time. IvAN kOžARIć 01.07 - 31.10 » kOžARIć 100 Last November the Croatian art world was shaken by the death of Ivan Kožarić (1921-2020), a sculptor whose mercurial imagination has left a profound mark on Zagreb’s streets, and has in some way become one of the city’s main trademarks. His death was not exactly unexpected. Kožarić was after all 99 years old. However it was widely assumed that this endlessly inventive, playful and eternally young artists would, if not exactly keep on going for ever, at least make his century. Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU) will be hosting major retrospectives devoted to Kožarić in the summer of 2021. QJ‑4, Contemporary Art Museum, Avenija Dubrovnik 17, tel. (+385‑1) 605 27 00.

IvAN kApEC A long-serving pillar of Zagreb’s jazz and experimental scenes, guitarist and composer Ivan Kapec scooped up the critical plaudits in 2020 with his fifth, self-released album Crta (“The Line”). Recorded together with Mario Bočić (saxophone), Šimun Matišić (vibraphone), Ivar Roban Križić (double bass) and Borko Rupena (drums), it is an eclectic, multi-faceted album of many moods and colours. The quintet moves effortlessly from melodic and silky to meditative and melancholy, and can suddenly shift gear to hit a percussive groove or explode into bonkers modern-jazz soloing. The unusual combination of Kapec’s baritone guitar and the other instruments (saxophone and vibraphone especially) gives the album a distinctive tone, occupying a niche between post-rock and the theme music to a hauntingly beautiful art movie. A prolific figure with a huge track record of solo work and collaborative projects behind him, Kapec looks set to be a central figure in Croatian jazz for the foreseeable future. ‘Crta’ vinyl is available in Aquarius, Freebird and Woodstock record stores in Zagreb.

Ivan Kapec, Photo by Vesna Zednik

Ivan Kožarić, Museum of Contemporary Art Archives

MATIjA čOp A STEp INTO THE pAST In 2014, Matija Čop’s signature dress appeared on the cover of Zagreb in Your Pocket. The works of this promising Croatian fashion designer were recently purchased by the famous Parisian Center Pompidou. Matija Čop is already well established on the international fashion scene, having been recognized by the icons of the popular culture such as Lady Gaga and Solange who both wore his couture dresses in their music videos. The museum purchased three dresses, two of which are now part of the museum’s permanent display, together with fourteen of his fashion design drawings. On your next trip to Paris, make sure to see Matija Čop’s work at Centre Pompidou.

lANA STOjIčEvIć Having won the Radoslav Putar Award, artist Lana Stojičević can be Considered Croatia’s Best Artist One of the most thrilling Croatian artists to emerge in recent years is the Šibenik-born Lana Stojićević. Her photographs directan ambiguous and unsettling gaze towards an Adriatic coast that we normally associate with happy beach holidays. Nominated for the prestigious Radoslav Putar art prize in 2021, Stojićević has become celebrated for a series of works that provide oblique commentary on the uncontrolled growth of vacation houses along the shore. In her 2018 series Fasada she photographed herself wearing an outlandish pink costume made in imitation of a coastal holiday villa. It continued a theme visited in earlier projects Villa Rosa and Parcela, in which modern apartment developments were reimagined as models, toys or cakes.Stojićević has already been feted by the foreign media for Sunny Side, an arresting series of photographs involving the futuristic swimming pool of the Hotel Zora in Primošten. Using both the real pool and models of it reconstructed to look like a flying saucer,Stojićević’s photographssuggest a sci-fi scenario that plays eloquently on the modernist aspects of the Adriatic landscape.

Matija Čop Archives

Lana Stojičević, Sunny Side