Jagoda Buić, From the Sun, 1963

Jagoda Buić
From the Sun, 1963
horizontal weaving, wool
285 x 104 cm
MG-2614

With its geometric forms positioned one under the other, the tapestry titled From the Sun (1963), harmoniously follows the vertically arranged composition predetermined by its very dimensions. With various shades of warm red, the artist conveys a sense of tranquillity, while the rich textures reveal the dexterity of her hand.
Jagoda Buić (1930 – 2022) was born in Split. She is a prominent Croatian artist best known for her monumental tapestries. The facts that she was educated at the Academy of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb, the Department of Art History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, that she studied costume and set design in Venice and film set design in Rome, are certainly telling of her ambition. After having returned from her studies, she worked as a costume and set designer in the theatres in Zagreb, Split and Osijek, as well as on film, the most famous of which are The Year Long Road from 1958 and The Emperor’s New Clothes from 1961. But as of 1962, tapestry became her primary medium of artistic expression. She has shown her works at numerous exhibitions of tapestries in Amsterdam, Madrid and New York, and her works are part of prestigious collections such as the MoMA in New York. In 2010, a retrospective exhibition of her work was organized in the Museum of Arts and Crafts, and in 2019 an exhibition at the “Josip Račić” Gallery – NMMU.

Text: Lorena Šimić, trainee curator of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Jagoda Buić, Black Dynamic Circle, 1966 – 1978

Jagoda Buić
Black Dynamic Circle, 1966 – 1978
wool / tapestry
225 x 260 cm
MG-4066

Jagoda Buić (1930 – 2022) is an internationally acclaimed Croatian visual artist, best known for her art of creating tapestries and textile sculptures. In addition, she was also a costume and set designer, sculptress and paintress, and she also worked as a theatre director. What is specific about her tapestries is the pictorial treatment of the visual complex. Her tapestries and textile sculptures can be understood in the expanded meaning of imago (image, figure, form) as images and sculptures in themselves, with inherent material qualities. In 1949, she entered the Academy of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb (E. Tomašević. K. A. Radovani). She went on to study costume and set design in Rome and Venice, and in 1954 she obtained a degree in textile art and interior architecture at the Akademie für angewandte Kunst in Vienna. She created more than 150 costumes and set designs, and also made costumes for films (The Emperor’s New Clothes, 1961), but as of 1962, tapestry became her primary medium of artistic expression. Jagoda Buić was also inspired by yarn needlework of the Dalmatian Hinterland. She continues to explore the form and structure of the material and creates vertical tapestries (Vertical I, 1968), which were exhibited at the 26th Venice Biennale in 1968. Since the 1970s, she creates three-dimensional tapestries as forms in motion in the wind and water (Black Leafing, 1978). She theoretically explains her execution by referring to the myth of Ariadne combining woollen threads with empty spaces thus giving them structural value. The Black Dynamic Circle from 1966 – 1978 appears as if it has been produced by the laboratory of the New Tendencies (1961 – 1973). We see, like an image within an image, a minimalist visual assembly of black on black, a structurally-imbued relief circle on a rectangular surface. It is a pure geometric factuality of the tapestry-image implemented through two fundamental human forms: the circle and the square. In 1991, her work was presented at the Jean-Lurçat Contemporary Tapestry Museum in Angers, and in 2011, the Museum of Applied Arts in Zagreb organised a large retrospective exhibition in her honour, as well as the Revoltella Museum in Trieste in 2014. Later in life, she started working with paper, pieces of wool and cardboard (Moderator 2006), an in 2021 her works were presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. She has received numerous awards at home (Vladimir Nazor, 2014) and abroad, and her works are part of many prominent collections and museums.

Text: Željko Marciuš, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić© National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

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