Two artists, internationally recognized Olaf Nicolai (DE) and Dubrovnik based artist Mariana Pende (HR) exhibit a joint, site specific, installation – built especially and only for the Meštrović Pavilion in Zagreb. Olaf Nicolai “builds” the imaginary architectural space of Danče beach, which becomes the basis for Mariana’s spatial objects made of latex, graphite and Plexiglas. In her work, the artist transforms the material from the waste of the production process of the last working factory in Dubrovnik, into a fabric made of a completely new, at the same time, artificial and organic material – latex graphite, creating a completely new product, from which she builds colorful spatial installations. At the same time, the Bačva gallery becomes a “beach” – a summer refuge from the Zagreb heat, offering a diverse program for all ages – theater, literary and musical programs, performances, yoga and meditation.
EXHIBITION CONCEPT: BRANKO FRANCESCHI
DANCE DE LUXE
Dance de Luxe in its name and content refers to Danče public beach, the only beach in the centre of the famed touristic mecca of Dubrovnik. Due its somewhat hidden location known only to the local citizens and their closest friends, Danče beach has remained outside of the overwhelming touristic craze that marks Dubrovnik in summer. Danče is rocky, with patches of the cemented surfaces for sunbathing locals made themselves in previous decades. It also features a small beach bar with few improvised terraces with tables, which occasionally organizes late night grill parties for the staff and their friends only. During the years Danče became a hub for locals to share not only summer outdoor way of living, but also a place with specific social code and decorum where generations of citizens mingle and exchange newest gossip or verbal history of their city usually deferring from the official narrative. It is a place where you make or break lifelong friendships, meet or lose your lovers, or simply enjoy life with your family and relatives.
Dubrovnik born Mariana Pende and German artist Olaf Nicolai who spends his summers in Dubrovnik, constantly frequent Danče to swim and socialise. Their collaborative art project Dance de Luxe mimicking hedonism of the infamous disco era in its title, celebrates Danče’s outdoor social lifestyle and intends to recreate it in the interior of the Bačva Gallery, the most spectacular exhibition space in downtown Zagreb. The project’s aim is to create a hub where citizens of Zagreb and their guests, as well as gallery visitors and tourists, art students and art lovers, can meet, talk, create and enjoy programs created in collaboration with art schools and academies, neighbouring and local NGOs. Initiated by the merger of Olaf Nicolai’s spatial installation with Mariana Pende’s objects that together create scenography for the series of public events, Dance de Luxe, through the course of the exhibition, evolves in context and site-specific social sculpture. On his part Nicolai interprets and translates complex and organically developed topography of Danče beach with its continuation of improvised terraces, walls and staircases, into the drawing-like floor installation.
Pende on the other hand, further developing her experimentations with materials such as graphite, textile, Plexiglas in vivid colours, chromed metal and, for this occasion, dried sea sponges, creates vertical elements intended to rest on Nicolai’s horizontal floor articulation. In fact, her objects of various sizes, shapes, colours, materials and their combinations, represent temporary structures that are seasonally and daily built by Danče’s concessioners and beach goers. Exploring usage of the everyday materials in the production of her sculptures and thus contributing continuation of the neo-avant-guard aesthetics, Mariana Pende opens a completely new reference to the local community’s economy when she recycles graphite remnants taken from once successful TUP factory. This recently closed graphite factory was the last active industrial facility in Dubrovnik. Its closure left the city completely dependent on tourism income.
This collaborative installation, a work of art per se, is conceived as framework for the various programs and social interactions that will be run by the staff of HDLU and their collaborators. The Bačva Gallery is destined to become a hot spot for Zagreb’s 2023 summer season.
Dance de Luxe installation continues the history of artist’s made community minded spaces intended to enrich alienated lives of city dwellers, such as Karin Schneider’s Pomerio Vernicular Children Playground produced in 2008 in Rijeka, Marko Pogačnik litopuncture stone circle on the lake Jarun in Zagreb, or Milena Lah’s monumental marble stairs entitled Poetic Spaces providing scenography for poetry recitals in Maksimir Park since 1981, also in Zagreb. Dance de Luxe, alongside its main programming, thus gives a new life and sense of purpose to already existing public installations created by the previous generations of artists.
REFLECTION: OLAF NICOLAI
Designed by Ivan Meštrović (1883 -1962) and inaugurated in 1938, the Pavilion is not only an architecturally imposing building – it is also an urbanist statement. Even today, traffic circulates around it at a proper distance, as if the Pavilion is a temple in the middle of the city that should be approached with reverence. It is one of those architectures that create places that cannot be passed through unnoticed – everything is a creative setting that assigns things and people their spots. In his miniatures on urban features from the period in which Meštrović Pavilion was created, the German cultural historian Siegfried Kracauer noted a second, more informal architecture alongside this architecture of planned setting. He speaks of places that come into being slowly through the most diverse undertakings, that change again and again, transforming themselves – and thus resemble rather living landscapes. One such place is one of the oldest bathing beaches in Dubrovnik, Danče, after which a small republic was named.
Those who visit it find themselves in an area that looks like a large playground made of stone, with a variety of small buildings of variable functions that have been spontaneously created and still seem to be changing. “The beaches have several large rocks and jetties for sunbathing as well as a few ladders for climbing in and out of the sea,” says a web page introducing Danče. In the exhibition “Dance de Luxe”, this informal place meets Meštrović’s monumental pavilion, becoming its guest and a kind of “body snatcher”. However, the structures and built palimpsests of Danče are not simply transferred to the pavilion. Rather, visitors enter an architectural “blueprint” on and in which they can walk: a plan for the unplanned, a paradox. They encounter both sculptural elements and drawings that are proposals for possible buildings. The space of the pavilion is crossed with another architectural experience and transforms into a place of the imagination of its visitors. An image of the first building that humans erect, the so-called „Ur – hut”, can be found in a folio from 1465 by the architectural theorist Antonio Averlino. It shows Adam raising his arms above his head and folding his hands to protect himself from the rain after being expelled from Paradise. If you sit long enough on Danče’s beach, you will see this gesture too. Among those preparing to glide into the water with an elegant dive. “Jumping into the sea is safe here as the water is deep enough.” – is a very correct statement on the aforementioned website. Those who don’t like to jump can linger at the beach bar, the place of which the aforementioned Siegfried Kracauer said they are the ports from which adventurous journeys begin.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
OLAF
NICOLAI
Olaf Nicolai studied German literature and philology in Leipzig, Vienna and Budapest and earned his PhD on the topic “Die Wiener Gruppe”. In 2021, his 24-hour film “MARX” was shown in sixteen institutions around the world. He directed the musical theatre play “In Vain” by Georg Friedrich Haas at Theater Basel. His short film “Rodakis” was invited to be part of the 58th Berlin International Film Festival in 2008. In 2011, Olaf Nicolai staged a one-year performance project “Escalier du Chant” at the Pinakothek der Moderen in Munich, based on more than 50 commissioned compositions by 12 international composers. In 2015, Olaf Nicolai led the seven-month performative installation “Giro” on the roof of the German Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. In 2020, he designed the award-winning campaign “NOTHING FOR NOTHING: TRY AGAIN!” for the SCHAUBÜHNE Berlin theatre season. He is the winner of the “Wilhelm-Loth-Preis” award of the city of Darmstadt (2018); “Karl-Sczuka-Preis für Radiokunst” (2017) for his contribution to DOCUMENTA 14; “Kunstpreis der Stadt Wolfsburg” (2002); and the Böttcherstraße Art Prize in Bremen (1999). He received scholarships from Villa Aurora in Los Angeles (2008), IASPIS (Stockholm, 2000), PS1 (New York, 1998) and Villa Massimo, Rome (1997/98). In 2014, he realized the monument to those persecuted by the Nazi army at the Ballhausplatz in Vienna, Austria, as well as the permanent artistic interior design for the new buildings “Meisterhäuser Gropius and Moholy-Nagy” at Bauhaus Dessau. He currently lives and works in Berlin. He is a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany.
MARIANA
PENDE
Mariana Pende studied sculpture in 2002 at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia with Professor Andrea Grassi, where she was chosen to participate in the sculpture symposium, where her sculpture was placed in a public space at the Sant’Andrea Standrez – Gorizia, Slovenia – Italy border crossing. During her studies, she tried different types of multimedia art. She studied sculpture-installation in the class of Professor Roberto Pozzobon and in 2005 she was chosen to participate in the 51st Venice Biennial (Atelier Aperti, Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia). During her studies, she began exhibiting at group exhibitions. In 2008, she graduated in Arte e musica contemporanea in the class of prof. Nicole Cisternina. In 2008, she participated in a residency at the Kulturamt Frankfurt am Main where she presented Dubrovnik for the first time. She exhibits at numerous group exhibitions in the country and abroad. Since 2014, she has exhibited independently in the most important Croatian and foreign museum institutions: MMSU, Rijeka, 2016, Gliptotheque HAZU, Zagreb, 2017, Museum of Contemporary Art Istra, Pula, 2017, Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik, 2018 and 2019, Palazzo Costanzi (Trieste Contemporanea), Trieste, 2019, 58th Venice Biennale 2019, Gallery of Fine Arts, 2019. Her works are in museum and private collections. She lives and works in Dubrovnik.
SIDE PROGRAM
TUESDAYS – EVENING YOGA FLOW (Read more…)
powered by CEDEVITA vitaminska voda
EVENING MEDITATION (Read more…)
powered by CEDEVITA vitaminska voda
17.6. – PLAY „BLUE PLANET“ (Read more…)
In cooperation with Smješko Theatre
SATURDAYS – CONCERT „LUXUZNA SONATA“ (Read more…)
In cooperation with Ensemble Synchronos
- MORE ABOUT THE PROGRAMS:
- 1.6. - EXHIBITION OPENING
7.30 pm OPENING SPEACH: Ivana Andabaka, the director of HDLU; Branko Franceschi, the curator of the exhibition and the director of NMMU – partner of the exhibition; dr. Christian Hellbach, His Excellency. Ambassador of Republic of Germany. With the presence of artists Olaf Nicolai and Mariana Pende
8 pm MUSIC PERFORMANCE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE COMMUNICATE BY ANNA GHALLO (VOCAL) I SAŠA NESTOROVIĆ (SAXOPHONE)
The sound event What Happens When We Communicate, performed by Saša Nestorović on saxophone and Anna Ghallo with voice, in the original, timeless ambiance of the art installation in the Bačva gallery, is a contemporary practice of incorporating sound into the fabric of reality and finding the unique harmonic frequency of a given situation.
“By coming to awareness of harmonics of the universe we enter the wholeness of the moment now.”
8.30 pm DJ BONNIE (BERLIN)
Aleksandra Skwarc aka Bonnie, a true soulful music maestra, an accomplished DJ, curator, agency owner, and an outspoken advocate for democracy, community, and an egalitarian future in the arts, wherever her work takes her.
Aleksandra Skwarc’s music career began in the mid-nineties when she hosted a hip-hop radio show at the Hamburg radio station FSK. Together with Lawrence (Dial Records), she held the “In Love With” evenings in Hamburg Golden Poodle Club, and during the day she worked with international electronic artists at Motor Musik. She founded her own booking agency in 2008. As a DJ, she is always on the go, either alone or teamed up with her friends Tiefschwarz, Lawrence, Fetisch, Munk, and many others. Aleksandra Skwarc is mainly responsible for DJ booking, mixes, compilations, and music for fashion shows and events at Musique Couture. Web page.
- TUESDAYS – EVENING YOGA FLOW (Read more…)
powered by CEDEVITA vitaminska voda
powered by CEDEVITA vitaminska voda
dates: 6.6., 13.6., 27.6., 4.7., 11.7., 18.7., 25.7 , 1.8., 8.8., 22.8.
time: 8.15 pm, duration: 1 hour and 15 min
description: With exclusive access to the Bačva Gallery outside of working hours, join us for an evening yoga class, open to everyone. A light yoga practice is the ideal way to end the day, with complete relaxation of body and mind.
The evening “Yoga Flow” is a gentle, slightly dynamic sequence of asanas (physical positions) for warming up and increasing the flexibility of the entire body and releasing accumulated stress from the body and mind. The program begins with a gentle warm-up of the body and continues with a fluid sequence of asanas, which, through the synchronized connection of movement and breath, leads us to the establishment of internal balance, a relaxed body, and a calm mind.
After the asana practice, yoga nidra awaits you, a guided, deep relaxation known as “yogic sleep”. With this relaxation technique, we remove fatigue and tension from the body and mind and achieve a balance of all body systems and deep relaxation on a physical, emotional, and mental level.
teacher: Dragana is a certified Hatha-Vinyasa and Dharma Yoga teacher. She attended the basic RYT 200 training in 2014 and completed it at the Divya Yoga school in Zagreb, while she completed the advanced Dharma Yoga training, RYT 500 “Life Of A Yogi” in 2018 in New York, with the founder of Dharma Yoga, the great yogi of today, Sri Dharma Mittra. She has been practicing yoga for more than twelve years. Creative and cheerful, she brings to her teachings a wealth of knowledge and elements from many years of her personal experience and deep practices rooted in the teachings of Hatha and Dharma Yoga, which contain the very essence of complete transformation and improvement of the mental, physical and spiritual state of man. For the last eight years, she has been teaching yoga in Zagreb, holding weekly and monthly thematic intensives that deal with different techniques and elements of yoga, organizing and leading training in the field of conscious breathing, i.e. breath management. Yoga retreats, which she organizes in different, beautiful locations in nature, all over Croatia, give her special joy.
Number of participants: The number of places is limited to 10 participants per class.
tickets: Joga flow class is free, with mandatory prior reservation and presentation of the exhibition ticket, which you can use at any time during the exhibition.
reservations: RESERVATION OF THE SPACE IN THE PROGRAM
equipment: In the gallery space, disinfected mats provided by Flexity will welcome you. It is not necessary to bring your own equipment.
support: Yoga flow class is powered by CEDEVITA vitaminska voda.
- EVENING MEDITATION
powered by CEDEVITA vitaminska voda
powered by CEDEVITA vitaminska voda
dates: 6.7. (Thursday), 16.7. (Sunday), 19.7. (Wednesday), 26.7. (Wednesday), 2.8. (Wednesday), 9.8. (Wednesday, 23.8. (Wednesday)
time: 8:15 pm, duration: 1 hour
description: Yogic relaxation techniques, at the end of the day, help release accumulated stress and bring the body and mind back into balance. This evening meditation is intended to let go of the day’s accumulated stress, calm thoughts and restore energy. After the guided meditation, yoga nidra (“yogic dream”) awaits you, lasting about 40 minutes. Yogic sleep additionally calms and calms the mind, clears it of accumulated thoughts and leads to a state of expanded consciousness. Guided deep relaxation with visualization and the wonderful sound of koshi bells and crystal “singing” bowls, leads to calmness in the body and mind and to a deep energetic and physical renewal of the organism.
teacher: Dragana is a certified Hatha-Vinyasa and Dharma Yoga teacher. She attended the basic RYT 200 training in 2014 and completed it at the Divya Yoga school in Zagreb, while she completed the advanced Dharma Yoga training, RYT 500 “Life Of A Yogi” in 2018 in New York, with the founder of Dharma Yoga, the great yogi of today, Sri Dharma Mittra. She has been practicing yoga for more than twelve years. Creative and cheerful, she brings to her teachings a wealth of knowledge and elements from many years of her personal experience and deep practices rooted in the teachings of Hatha and Dharma Yoga, which contain the very essence of complete transformation and improvement of the mental, physical and spiritual state of man. For the last eight years, she has been teaching yoga in Zagreb, holding weekly and monthly thematic intensives that deal with different techniques and elements of yoga, organizing and leading training in the field of conscious breathing, i.e. breath management. Yoga retreats, which she organizes in different, beautiful locations in nature, all over Croatia, give her special joy.
Number of participants: The number of places is limited to 10 participants per class.
tickets: The evening meditation class is free, with mandatory prior reservation and presentation of the exhibition ticket, which you can use at any time during the exhibition.
reservations: RESERVATION OF THE SPACE IN THE PROGRAM
equipment: In the gallery space, disinfected mats provided by Flexity will welcome you. It is not necessary to bring your own equipment.
support: Yoga flow class is powered by CEDEVITA vitaminska voda3
- 17.6. – PLAY „BLUE PLANET“
In cooperation with Smješko Theatre
In cooperation with Smješko Theatre
date: 17.6.
time: 10 am, duration: up to 40 min
description: ECO educational show that educates preschool and lower grade children in an interesting and fun way about the topics of preserving seas, rivers, lakes, the environment of planet Earth and ecology. Through interaction with children during the play, the actress teaches children about the preservation of seas and waters, how the rains are formed, how the seas and rivers were formed…what the children themselves can do to reduce litter, preserve the flora and fauna of our seas, rivers, and lakes from pollution. The beautiful seas, rivers, and lakes of our planet Earth need our help… Because people have created too much garbage, our sea is being polluted… Therefore, let’s learn together how to protect water from pollution and save nature and planet Earth for future generations.
Director: Mirta Zečević
Authors: Petra Mrduljaš/Barbara Vicković
Starring: Barbara Vicković/Mirta Zečević
number of participants: The number of places is limited to 50 visitors
tickets: The ticket price is €7. The ticket includes the show and the exhibition. Every visitor should have a ticket, including children – regardless of age. With mandatory prior reservation, tickets can be purchased 30 minutes before the show at the box office of the Meštrović Pavilion.
reservation: RESERVATION OF THE SPACE IN THE PROGRAM
- SATURDAYS – CONCERT LUXUZNA SONATA
In cooperation with Ensemble Synchronos
In cooperation with Ensemble Synchronos
1.movement: Arioso ecologico / 2. movement: Largo betonato / 3. movement: Con fuoco elettrificato
dates: 1.7., 15.7., 26.8.
time: 7 pm
description: Each concert stages one movement of the sonata, which with its echo and trace in the space, somewhat self-indulgently, stretches until the next concert, that is, leans on the next movement.
The movements are driven by musical material that aurally and subconsciously rests on the exhibition subjects – through used instruments and non-instruments, i.e. recycled objects; natural elements such as water and air, light; through the articulation of the different personalities of the performers and the musical material itself.
The musicians, in search of an intimate space of sound, which creeps over surfaces and drags into cavities, travel through sonata form, strained beyond recognition, creating a new harmony.
performed by: Ensemble Synchronos is an international ensemble formed in 2019 by a group of artists from Croatia, Austria, France, and the United States. Since its inception and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the ensemble has given several successful concerts, workshops, and interactive specialists lectures live and online with the support of the Croatian Ministry of Culture & Media, Croatian Composers’ Association, Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek, Austrian Cultural Forum, Ernst von Siemens Stiftung and others. The ensemble has collaborated and performed various works by composers Andys Skordis, Marko Slaviček, Tibor Szirovicza, Mladen Tarbuk, Reiko Füting, Frano Đurović, Sanda Majurec, Brigitta Muntendorf, Nina Šenk, Nico Muhly, Dubravko Detoni and others.
1.movement / Soloists: Marko Zupan, Ivana Kuljerić Bilić
2. movement / Soloist: Mia Elezović
3. movement / Soloists: Vlatka Peljhan
tickets: The concert is free of charge, upon presentation of a ticket for the exhibition, which you can use at any time during the duration of the exhibition.
reservation: not need7
- 27.6. - PERFORMANCE „ICE CREAM PARLOR DUBAI“
Antun Sekulić
Antun Sekulić
date: 27.6.
time: 17:00
description: The performance deals with the problem of the lack of jobs for students, which are related to their profession, whereby students turn to jobs such as pastry chef, fast food worker, waiter, shop assistant, cook, cleaner…
about the artist: Antun Sekulić is a post-neoconceptual artist and sculpture student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. So far, he has exhibited at a series of group exhibitions: The Situation of the 36th Youth Salon, at the ALU Perspektive, at the Home of HDLU, the Križevci City Museum, and elsewhere.
tickets: Admission to the performance is free of charge, upon presentation of an exhibition ticket, which you can use at any time during the exhibition.
- PROGRAM OF THE FRAKTURA BOOKSTORE "I AM READING AT THE BEACH"
June 28, July 5 and July 10, at 7.30 pm famous Croatian writers (Kristian Novak, Snježana Banović i Mihaela Gašpar Đukić) are reading from their book manuscripts. The books will be published in Autumn.
The program is in Croatian language
TICKETS
5 €
single ticket
3 €
Single children’s ticket (over 6 years old), pupil, student and senior citizen tickets (1)
3 €
Single group ticket (2)
2 €
Single professional ticket (3)
11 €
Family ticket (4)
2 €
Single group ticket for schools (5)
GRATIS for regular members of HDLU, AICA, ICOM, DPUH, HND, IFJ, EFJ, IGT associations, ALU students and FF students of PUM, EKA or MUZ, Design Studies students and ŠPUD students (with presentation of valid documents), persons with disabilities, children under 6 years old.
Tickets can be purchased at the HDLU box office during exhibition opening hours in cash.
For other inquiries related to tickets, please contact hdlu@hdlu.hr
Tickets include 5% VAT.
(1) upon presentation of a valid document
(2) for groups over five people
(3) for regular members of ULUPUH, HDD, UHA, ORIS, HULU Split, HDLU Osijek, HDLU Rijeka, HDLU Dubrovnik, HDLU Istria, HDLU Varaždin, upon presentation of a valid membership card
(4) up to a maximum of 4 family members with children older than 6 years
(5) price per student, 1 student escort free of charge
WORKING HOURS
Tuesday– Sunday:
9am-12pm / 4pm-8pm
Mondays and holidays closed
* On Sunday, August 27, the exhibition will be open until noon.
VENUE
Home of HDLU (Meštrović Pavilion)
Bačva Gallery
Trg žrtava fašizma 16,Zagreb
T : 385(0)14611818
E-mail: hdlu@hdlu.hr
Web: www.hdlu.hr
IMPRESSUM
Organizer: HDLU
Partner: National Museum of Modern Art (NMMU)
Producer: Ivana Andabaka (HDLU)
Curator: Branko Franceschi (NMMU)
Exhibition coordinator: Nika Šimičić
Associate: Josipa Vukelić
Artistic Board: Mia Akrap, Branka Benčić, Tomislav Buntak, Ivan Fijolić, Vida Meić, Leila Topić, Josip Zanki
