The exhibition of contemporary Dubrovnik artist Katarina Alamat Kusijanović, titled “Measure” was opened on 7 April in the NMMA’s Josip Račić Gallery. The exhibition, conceived by art historian and critic Vanja Babić showcases 96 small-format works, 48 of which form twin compositions and 5 are large-format reliefs, created during the Covid pandemic and in which Katarina Alamat Kusijanović examines her own relationship with the world and society. In addition to the monumental reliefs in white chalk, in the Josip Račić Gallery the audience have the opportunity to see the gilded reliefs on wood and acrylics on plexiglass, accompanied by the sounds of swifts, rain and wind… The aforementioned works repeat, to a greater or lesser extent, the Latin elegiac couplet from the arch of the Gothic-Renaissance Sponza Palace in Dubrovnik

FALLERE NOSTRA VETANT ET FALLI PONDERA MEQVE PONDERO CVM MERCES, PONDERAT IPSE DEVS  (Our weights will not permit us to deceive or be deceived. While I weigh the goods, God himself is weighing me.), which the artist perceives as a kind of principle we should all live by. Measures and measurement for Katarina Alamat Kusijanović represent the foundation of civilization and are the primary tool of our knowledge and understanding of the world at all levels. Katarina Alamat Kusijanović presents to the audience in Zagreb works that have largely been shown at the exhibition Mensura in the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik in 2020. The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue in Croatian and English, with a foreword by Vanja Babić and designed by Ana Zubić.

Biography

Katarina Alamat Kusijanović was born in Dubrovnik in 1965. She obtained a degree from the Education College in Belgrade, 1989, majoring in easel painting restoration and conservation, and then in 2004 she graduated from the Arts Academy in Split. Since 1992, she has been a member of the Croatian Association of Visual Artists. From 1993 to 2019 she was employed as a conservation-restoration consultant in the Croatian Conservation Institute and from 2008 to 2013 she worked as the head of the Dubrovnik Restoration Department. As staff member of the Croatian Conservation Institute, she gave a series of lectures in professional and scientific conferences at home and abroad. She has published two scientific and a number of specialised works. She is the author of the exhibition installation Hidden Trecento (in front of the Rector’s Palace in Dubrovnik, 2018) and of the exhibition The Altar Painting of Jacopo Tintoretto from the Cathedral in Korčula (Rector’s Palace, Dubrovnik, 2008). Since 2008 she has been working as a designer for Adriatic Luxury Hotels, and since 2019 she is the head of their interior design department. The exhibition MENSURA / MEASURE 2020, at the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik, interprets the past, present and future of the City through the idea of measure as the antithesis of chaos, proverbially carved into the stone of Dubrovnik for centuries. She has held and participated in many solo and group exhibitions. Katarina Alamat Kusijanović lives and works in Dubrovnik.

Image:  From the Katarina Alamat Kusijanović exhibition set up at the Josip Račić Gallery. Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2022

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