From 9 November 2021 to 16 January 2022, the National Museum of Modern Art presents the exhibition Exploitation of Death, conceived by art historian Dajana Vlaisavljević, which brings together around 60 artworks (paintings, sculptures, prints and video performances) created during the period ranging from the 19th to the 20th century. Most are artworks from the NMMU holdings, with several works from other Croatian museums and private collections.
The exhibition Exploitation of Death explores the theme of dying and death in the visual arts taking into consideration works that thematize not only human death, but also those that deal with the disappearance of nature, in the broadest sense, of which man is only an integral part. The process of dying, finality in general, that is, death of all living beings is therefore equated with the destruction of nature. The exhibition examines whether and how an artist experiences finality of all living beings and inanimate nature until the end of the world, that is, cataclysm, and how has the process been presented by Croatian artists in their works. For the purposes of this research, we used artworks from the museum holdings for the most part, which include artworks from the 19th c. to the present day. They are arranged into several thematic groups, Meat is Murder; The End of the World, Cataclysm; The Paradox of Death; Everybody Dies, Don’t They; Final Farewells, Death is Not the End.
The exhibition will showcase works by Lovro Artuković, Ljubo Babić, Vladimir Becić, Bruno Bulić, Nataša Cetinić, Menci Clement Crnčić, Bela Čikoš Sesija, Vladimir Filakovac, Ivo Gattin, Ivan Generalić, Stjepan Gračan, Krsto and Željko Hegedušić, Georg Hainz, Ignjat Job, Gabriel Jurkić, Josip Klarica, Zlatko Kopljar, Branko Kovačević, Iso Kršnjavi, Ivan Lovrenčić, Antun Maračić, Nikola Mašić, Jan Matejko, Antun Mezdjić, Valerije Michielij, Karlo Mijić, Renè Miković, Zoran Mušič, Ratko Petrić, Oton Postružnik, Zlatko Prica, Mirko Rački, Vanja Radauš, Ivo Rein, Dijana Rajković, Branko Ružić, Miljenko Stančić, Mladen Stilinović, Hrvoje Šercar, Robert Šimrak, Frano Šimunović, Đuro Tiljak, Kamilo Tompa and Maksimilijan Vanka.
In addition to the foreword written by Dajana Vlaisavljević, as the exhibition author, the exhibition catalogue includes texts on the topic of dying and death written by cultural anthropologist, Suzana Marjanić, PhD and biologist Mirna Marinić, PhD.
Photo: Goran Vranić ©National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb