Slavomir Drinković, Ab ovo, 1977

Slavomir Drinković
Ab ovo, 1977
polished Swedish granite, steel
12.5 x 23.5 x 23.5 cm
MG-6299

Slavomir Drinković is known as a sculptor of extremely simple forms, tense surfaces, and relationships, often using traditional sculptural materials and their combinations. One of the key themes in his work is a fissure, and thus his knowledge of the method of driving wedges to achieve the direction of a desired crack is one of Drinković’s key shaping methods. The sculpture Ab ovo from 1977 depicts a black granite egg as the beginning of everything, which irreversibly splits open in the middle, revealing the other side of its rich structure. With the title of the sculpture, Drinković refers to an expression taken from Horace’s work De arte poetica, in which he praises Homer for beginning the Iliad with the siege of Troy, and not “ab ovo,” that is, with the birth of the beautiful Helen, who, according to the myth, was born from an egg.
Slavomir Drinković (1951, Jelsa – 2016, Zagreb) was a Croatian sculptor who graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1977 under the mentorship of Valerije Michieli. From 1977 to 1979, he worked as an associate at the Master Workshop of Antun Augustinčić and Ivan Sabolić. Since 1995, he has been working at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb as an associate professor at the Department of Sculpture, assuming the position of a full professor in 2001. He is also the head of the Summer Stone Sculpture Studio at the Academy, as part of which the project Joy was realized. Numerous sculptures by Drinković have been installed in public spaces in Croatia and abroad, among which the sculpture of Marko Marulić in Berlin in 2000, and the memorial of mass graves from the Croatian War of Independence in Vukovar in 1998, deserve special mention. Drinković has also worked as an interior and furniture designer, as well as a theater set designer.

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

Skip to content