While its main building remains closed for comprehensive renovation, the National Museum of Modern Art continues in 2026 to present its collection in fragments through the NMMU on Tour programme. In Transit is the second exhibition in this year’s cycle and opens on 30 January at the Požega City Museum.

Curated by NMMU museum educator Lorena Šimić Majić, the exhibition brings together around thirty works by Croatian artists from the collections of the National Museum of Modern Art, dating from the early 19th century to the present day. In these works, the motif of means of transport appears as a significant visual and semantic element.

Through the selected artworks, the curator traces the ways in which different forms of movement have been reflected in artistic depictions of everyday life, landscapes, labour, travel and leisure. The exhibition presents various modes of movement and their reflections in daily experience, artistic imagination and collective visual culture. As the curator emphasises, the exhibition does not offer a chronological overview of the development of transportation, but rather a series of diverse perspectives on movement as a constant human experience. Means of transport in these works are shown as part of the landscape, as markers of social change, or as metaphors for inner states. They connect past and present, work and leisure, the real and the imagined.

Ultimately, the exhibition reminds us that movement is an integral part of human existence. Whether slow or accelerated, everyday or exceptional, it continually places us between departure and arrival. Observing the works brought together in In Transit, we become aware of our own position – we, too, are participants in a world in constant motion, always en route, always passing through.

Artists:
Joso Bužan, Marijan Detoni, Stipe Dizdar, Ivo Dulčić, Marta Ehrlich, Jadranka Fatur, Robert Frangeš-Mihanović, Andrija Hangya, Krsto Hegedušić, Oton Iveković, Vasilije Jordan, Franz Jaschke, Nives Kavurić-Kurtović, Albert Kinert, Ivan Lovrenčić, Nikola Mašić, Zdravko Milić, Karlo Mijić, Franjo Pavačić, Pavao Perić, Tonka Petrić, Juraj Plančić, Oton Postružnik, Arsen Roje, Reska Šandor, Slavko Šohaj, Slavko Tomerlin, Kamilo Tompa, Petar Ujević, Milivoj Uzelac, Emanuel Vidović

The exhibition is realised with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and will remain on view at the Požega City Museum until 4 April 2026.

Reproductions:
Kamilo Tompa, On the Street, 1931 / paper, glass, watercolour drawing in charcoal / 58.5 × 52 cm; overall with frame: 69 × 62 cm, MG-2517
Milivoj Uzelac, Plane Trees, 1933 / oil on canvas, 117 × 89.5 cm, MG-1018
Jadranka Fatur, Bus Station, 1975 / oil on canvas, 160 × 130 cm, MG-4077

Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Images: Reproductions: Kamilo Tompa, On the Street, 1931 / paper, glass, watercolor charcoal drawing / 58.5 × 52 cm; overall with frame: 69 × 62 cm, MG-2517 / Milivoj Uzelac, Plane Trees, 1933 / oil on canvas, 117 × 89.5 cm, MG-1018 / Jadranka Fatur, Bus Station, 1975 / oil on canvas, 160 × 130 cm, MG-4077 / Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić