Dušan Džamonja
(1928 – 2009)
Metal Sculpture 22, 1962
iron nails
195 x 116 x 22 cm
MG-2444

This charismatic sculptor occupies a prominent place in contemporary Croatian visual arts, and the artistic value of his original sculptures is universal. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1951. His first noteworthy success came when he showed his works at the Venice Biennale in 1960, which opened the doors of international art institutions for him.
The prolific sculptural oeuvre of Dušan Džamonja has an experimental and avant-garde meaning because he started applying new sculptural material (iron, glass, wire, black concrete) and non-classical sculptural treatment (forging, welding or joining different materials), and he achieved a harmonious relationship between sculptural form and symbolic content. He designed free spatial structures of outstanding geometric purity and organic vitality, such as the sculptures of compact or dissected spheres. He also created the so-called iron tapestries or free sculptures that had suggestive effects. In his monumental works he formed and designed abstract sculptures and free volumes that have universal and timeless meaning.
Despite the non-figurative modelling, the abstract Metal Sculpture has a noticeable anthropomorphic origin. An independent symbolic form is imposed with its own rhythmic structure and the serial adding of the basic design element, that is, by welding iron nails.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb