From 17 February to 17 April 2022, the National Museum of Modern Art presents a series of paintings by the Dubrovnik artist Izvor Pende. Conceived by art historian Branko Franceshi, Director of the NMMU, the exhibition showcases the artist’s thirty-odd recent paintings, specifically, his colouristically strong large-format abstract oils.
Izvor’s recent, distinctly self-confident paintings do not point to links or have a foothold in local Abstract painting, but they refer to numerous phenomena that have contributed to the rich vocabulary of Abstract art. … (Branko Franceschi)
Izvor Pende was born in Zagreb and grew up in Dubrovnik. The artist began studying sculpture in 1996 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb before moving to Germany to study painting at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, receiving his degree in 2002 under Professors Karin Rissa and Markus Lupertz and his master’s degree in 2005. Since 2003, Pende has exhibited individually and collectively at exhibitions in Bonn, Munich, Hannover, Dusseldorf and Hamburg in Germany, Chicago in the United States and Eupena in Belgium. In 2008, Pende won the Bat (British American Tobacco) nomination. He had his first solo exhibition in Croatia in 2010 in the Bačva Gallery of the Croatian Society of Fine Artists in Zagreb. His next exhibitions followed in 2010 at the Art Workshop Lazareti in Dubrovnik, then in 2011 in the Glyptotheque HAZU in Zagreb and in 2014 at the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik. Pende has recently focused on pure abstraction, turning away from his early focus on figurative and landscape paintings. In his new abstract paintings, he retained references to the organic structures and shapes that evoke the ground, which he connects with stripes and geometric forms that create internal tension and dynamic dialogue within the paintings. In 2016, Pende exhibited his abstract works at the Art Workshop Lazareti in Dubrovnik. The artistic dialogue with German painter Daniel Richter began in the project "Swimming Together", wherein the two painters showcased their paintings side-by-side in several museums and institutions, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Split in 2017, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka in 2018. In 2019, Izvor Pende presented his solo exhibition “Golden Hours” at David Richard Gallery in New York, and in the same year Pende participated in the exhibition “Place of Interrupted Departures”, together with artists Marijana Pende and Slaven Tolj, which was held during the 58th Venice Biennale in the Pavilion Tesa 100 in the Arsenale. In 2020, Pende participated in the Dynamic and Fiction exhibition at Galerie Gans in Vienna. Izvor Pende’s artworks are kept in various museum and private collections.
Notice: on Easter, Sunday 17th April, National Museum of Modern Art will be closed.
Images:
- Izvor Pende, Untitled, 2021, 180 x 240 cm, oil on canvas
- From the Izvor Pende Odgovor / Response exhibition setup at the NMMU, Zagreb.
Photo: Boris Berc © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2022