INVITATION to the EXHIBIT body.city - within a Croatian perspective

body. city.

curated by Branko Franceschi

The exhibition presents works of 16 artists of the Croatian origin who are living and working in New York City, and/or who have been inspired by the City during their residency programs. . The exhibition considers constructing and deconstructing a myth of New York as the apex of contemporary visual art. Through a variety of agendas and artistic disciplines, body, personal experience and emotions collide with megacity’s cool vistas and estranged conduct. Work will be exhibited at the Gallery MC with the opening reception on

Thursday, February 23rd, from 7 to 9 PM and will run through Wednesday, March 2nd 2006.
The Doors Art Foundation is pleased to announce that a very special guest from Croatia, Mr. Branko Franceschi will attend the opening reception.

Gallery MC is located at 549 W 52nd Street, between 10th and 11th avenue, 8th floor. Gallery will be open to public Monday - Sunday from 11 to 6 pm.

The exhibition has been sponsored by the Heathcote Art Foundation/FACE Croatia, City of Rijeka, Auxano Inc. and Jana.

For any questions about the exhibition, please contact: Daniela Urem at 212.757. 7449 or doors@doors-art.com

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Branko Franceschi was born in Zadar, Croatia in 1959. From 1987 to 2004 he was a program director at the gallery Miroslav Kraljevic in Zagreb. Since 2004 he's been an executive director of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka, Croatia (www.mmsu.hr). Trained as an Art Historian at the University of Zagreb, in 1987 he initiated and curated hundreds of exhibitions of contemporary art for the gallery Miroslav Kraljevic and other spaces in Croatia and beyond. His diverse background includes online works, newspaper articles, art reviews and periodicals, TV and radio broadcasting.
He initiated, managed and coordinated a residency for Croatian artists at PS1 from 2001-2005 in New York and cultural exchanges between Croatia/USA and Croatia/Great Britain. He produced TV segments for Croatian Television on the contemporary art scenes in London and New York. In 2001 Branko worked with New Media Scotland on Blind Date, an exchange project involving six artists from Croatia and Scotland.
Member of AICA (Board of AICA Croatia), ICOM, CIMAM, DPUH, Advisory Committee of ArtsLink.

ARTISTS' BIOS

Ante Bozanich
Working in a relative obscurity and on an intimate scale, Ante Bozanich has produced a powerful body of psychodramatic work exploring the exile of the self in a contemporary culture. Born in Croatia, he immigrated to the United States in 1967 and began working in video in 1974 while living in Los Angeles. Bozanich’s work reflects the influence of performance and body art on the Southern California video art of the sixties. His early works feature visceral confrontations with the camera; the artist uses the instantaneous and intimate nature of video production as a psychodramatic construct. Bozanich’s psychic power treatment and his ability to reach in his inner depth is what distinguishes his work from others. Advancing his deeply personal and sometimes primal character in his work, his later tapes continue to illuminate his interior haunts with courageous acuity. Writing in Video 80, artists Bruce and Norman Yonemoto state that Bozanich’s personal existential vision foreshadowed the nihilism of punk and neo-expressionism. His works "embody Antonin Artaud's obsession with art that is at once ‘violent, insulting, dangerous and self-destructive.' " Bozanich was born 1949 in Vis, Croatia. He received a B.A., an M.A. and an M.F.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles. He received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ford Foundation. Bozanich’s tapes have been exhibited internationally at festivals and institutions including the Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; Hare Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Long Beach Museum of Art, California; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Artspace, San Francisco; San Francisco International Video Festival; Image Forum, Tokyo; and the American Film Institute's National Video Festival, Los Angeles. Bozanich lives in New York.

Predrag Dubravcic
Born in Zagreb, June 8th 1965. He received a B.A. in cinematography, Academy of Dramatic Arts, Zagreb University, Croatia, 1984 - 1989.
In 1989 Predrag moves to NYC as a print photographer - starts shooting film again in '94.
Awards: Festo 2001 for best commercial cinematography, Columbia University Film Festival Cinematography. In 1985, Dubravcic has his first solo exhibit of "pure photography" which tries to remove all outside elements from the photographic media (i.e. this is not an image of a subject but rather an image by itself). In 1988. Predrag writes a theoretical work "On Composition" complementing his ongoing output of images. He had 14 solo exhibitions, and numerous group shows in Croatia and US. His most recent shows include NYC Soho Photo Gallery and Ringwood Manor, NJ.

Vlatka Horvat
received her MA in 1997. Her MA final paper was entitled "Feigning to Forget: Forging Fictions of Identity in Post-Communist Croatia." Since 2000 Vlatka has primarily been working in the visual art context - working in a range of media, from video and photography to installation and text-based pieces. Many of her works are performance-based and often deal with a notion of a task, action, and enactment. Vlatka’s work has recently been shown at exhibitions and festivals in Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, and the US. She lives in New York.

Bozidar Jurjevic is a performance and video artist whose work has been included in the Clemont Ferrard Video Festival (2002) and in Body and the East, Exit Art, New York, (2001).
Recent performances include Performance Freedom, Zagreb, Croatia and Let the Light Shine over the Home, Rijeka, Croatia.

Zlatko Kopljar Born on March 5th 1962 in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Graduated painting in 1991 with Professor Zotti from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, Italy.
Lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia

Kristian Kozul (1975, Munich, Germany) lives and works in Zagreb and New York. Kozul attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1993 and he transferred to the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf where he graduated in 2002. Kozul received his first recognition as a video artist, however his late oeuvres consist of elaborate metaphorical objects. Kozul has participated at the numerous exhibitions both in Croatia and abroad and is considered one of the most intriguing Croatian artists of his generation.

Andreja Kuluncic (1968. Subotica, Serbia and Montenegro) lives and works in Zagreb. She graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts and Design in Belgrade in 1992 and completed her postgraduate studies at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. Kuluncic participated at the numerous international exhibition such as Liverpool Biennial (UK 2004), the 8th Istanbul Biennial (Turkey, 2003), The American Effect at Whitney Museum, (New York, 2003), Translocations, an on-line exhibition by Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, 2003), Documenta 11 (Kassel, 2002), Manifesta 4 (Frankfurt/Main, 2002) and other numerous group and solo exhibitions in Croatia and abroad.

Kristina Leko was born in 1966, Zagreb, Croatia. She is a visual and video artist, a writer who addresses a variety of issues ranging from political to intimate ones. Her works include actions in public space and intimate biography-based works. Leko works on communication and documentary projects in collaboration with various social groups. In 2001, she exhibited on Sarajevo International, a video-communication project in collaboration with twelve Sarajevo immigrants. In 2002/03 Leko did a project “On Milk and People” where she collaborated with Croatian and Hungarian farmer families. Her “Cheese and Cream” is a serial of actions and artifacts dedicated to protection of the milkmaids of Zagreb. In 2002 Leko exhibited “Mes objets trouves” - a collection of everyday objects with historical references. Leko marked her 1992 year with her “Visualy Based Perception Training” , a serial of public installations and workshops, Verfassungskorrekturbuerro – an action in progress correcting and improving the USA Constitution, 2004

Leo Modrcin is a New York based architect of Croatian origin. A graduate of Architectural School, University of Zagreb and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, Leo has worked as an architect in both the US and Croatia. His projects were honored at many architectural competitions, including the first prize at the 1997 Membrane Design Competition in Japan, for a conceptual project for the destroyed Old Bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Modrcin’s projects and writings are widely published. Beside architectural practice, he is also active in architectural pedagogy. With the renowned architect Lebbeus Woods and the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture (RIEA) he taught at the Borderline Architectural Workshop in Kraljevica, Croatia in 1997.

Dario Solman studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia and received his MFA from the Ohio State University. He participated in the P.S. 1 International Studio Program, the Cimelice Castle residency program in the Czech Republic and has taken part in group shows in Alexandria Bienalle, Egypt; Melbourne, Australia; Zagreb, Croatia; as well as various other venues in New York and elsewhere in the U.S.

Sandra Sterle (1965, Zadar, Croatia) lives and works in Split. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1989 and continued her studies at Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf 1995 – 1996. Sterle has exhibited internationally since 1995 and gained reputation as a multimedia artist by participating at numerous exhibitions: Capital & Gender (Skopje, 2001), To Tell a Story (Zagreb, 2001), Here Tomorrow (Zagreb, 2002), In den Schluchten des Balkan (Kassel, 2003). In 2001 Sandra Sterle produced go_HOME, an internet and streaming project with Danica Dakic. Her works are included in mayor retrospectives of Croatian video art such as Frame by Frame, Personal Cinema Program, Insert, as well as A Short History of Dutch Video Art. Since 2002 Sterle has been a senior lecturer at the New Media Department of the Art Academy in Split, Croatia.

Olja Stipanovic was born in Pula, Croatia where she started her art education. She moved to New York in 1992. She earned her BFA (painting) in 1998, and MFA (painting) in 2000, from the Parsons School of Design – The New School University, New York. For the past 5 years she has been the resident of Long Island City where her studio is located. Her work has been exhibited in various group shows in New York City and abroad

Goran Tomcic was born in Croatia, and has been living in the United States since 1991. After receiving his M.A. in Curatorial Studies at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, he served as curator of contemporary art at the Miami Dade College, and Allen Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio. He is a published poet and an exhibited artist, and has written extensively on art for various publications.

Ksenija Turcic was born 1963 in Zagreb, Croatia. Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts (Prof. Ferdinand Kulmer) in Zagreb in 1987. She went on to study painting with Prof. Joseph Kosuth at the organization Fondazione Antonio Ratti in Como, Italy in 1995. She lives in Zagreb.

Mio Vesovic Born in 1953 in Gornja Dobrinja, Croatia. He graduated from the Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in Zagreb, Croatia. Since the early 70s Vesovic’s journalistic photographs have been published in many established European newspapers and magazines. Since 1979, Vesovic has been showing his photographic works in galleries and over hundred of his works have been included in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb. In 1979 he started Studio MO with Ivan Posavec. Vesovic lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia.

Danijel Zezelj is a graphic artist and illustrator and author of more than twenty graphic novels. His comics and illustrations appeared in magazines and anthologies in Croatia, Slovenia, England, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the USA.
His work has been published by DC Comics/Vertigo, Marvel Comics, The New York Times Book Review, Harper’s Magazine, San Francisco Guardian, Washington Chronicle, etc.
Since 1997 Danijel created a series of multimedia performances in collaboration with musician/composer Jessica Lurie. The performances premiered in Italy, USA and Croatia. He lives and works between Brooklyn and Zagreb.

For more information please visit www.doors-art.com