From 5 February to 1 March, the National Museum of Modern Art presents the photographic exhibition Portraits of the Artists 1990 – 1995 by Darko Bavoljak at the Josip Račić Gallery. The exhibition is curated by Željko Marciuš, museum advisor at the National Museum of Modern Art.
The exhibition design, jointly conceived by Darko Bavoljak and Željko Marciuš, features a series of black-and- white portraits of Edita Schubert, Duje Jurić, Peruško Bogdanić, Edo Murtić, Goran Fruk, Đuro Seder, Ferdinand Kulmer, Ivan Kožarić, Milena Lah, Šime Perić, Miro Vuco, Željko Kipke, Ivan Lesiak, Zlatan Vrkljan, Slavomir Drinković, Lovro Artuković, Dalibor Martinis, Sanja Iveković, Breda Beban, Hrvoje Horvatić, Ksenija Turčić, Tomislav Gotovac i Slavko Šohaj.
In the accompanying exhibition catalogue, Željko Marciuš writes about them, among other things – ( …) His photographic images – in the truest sense – also function as representations of imago, through which we first experience the world in pictures with the aid of memory, later imbuing them with a physical dimension. They possess a refined and unobtrusive, even restrained, psychological aesthetic: conveying the eternal vision of the artist, captured, brought near, and isolated by the lens, revealing the divine spark and fragment of life that lies beyond the mimesis of what is seen. Darko Bavoljak photographs artists. His gaze is oblique – slightly offset, marginal – making visible what would otherwise remain hidden, or simply unseen. In today’s accelerated virtualisation of reality, everything is already equally susceptible to slipping into the invisible.

The exhibition, realized with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the City Office for Culture and Civil Society of the City of Zagreb, will be open to the public in Zagreb until 1 March 2026.

Images: Darko Bavoljak – from left to the right: na desno: (1) Đuro Seder, 1991., Ilford Muligrade IV RC DE LUXE / 50,8 x 61 cm, silver gelatine / 135/35 mm, KODAK TMY 5053, Olympus OM 2n (2) Ksenija Turčić, 1992., Ilford Muligrade IV RC DE LUXE / 50,8 x 61 cm, silver gelatine / 135/35 mm, Ilford HP5, Olympus OM 2n (3) Sanja Iveković, 1991., Ilford Muligrade IV RC DE LUXE / 50,8 x 61 cm, silver gelatine / 135/35 mm, KODAK TMY 5053, Olympus OM 1n (4) Ferdinand Kulmer, 1991., Ilford Muligrade IV RC DE LUXE / 50,8 x 61 cm, silver gelatine / 135/35 mm, KODAK TMY 5053, Olympus OM 2n