On 9 April, the National Museum of Modern Art from Zagreb and the Božidar Jakac Gallery from Kostanjevica na Krki presented a joint project – Staš Kleindienst’s exhibition Antiarcadia at the Josip Račić Gallery. According to Goran Milovanović, the director of the Božidar Jakac Gallery and the curator of the exhibition, this Slovenian artist, who is staging his first solo show in front of the Zagreb audience, is certainly one of the most prominent and intriguing painters of the middle generation in Slovenia at this moment. Ten oil paintings on canvas produced between 2020 and 2024 have been selected for display, sourced from public and private collections in Slovenia. After the introductory speech by Branko Franceschi, the director of the National Museum of Modern Art, in which he highlighted the continuous successful collaboration between the two museum institutions, initiated in 2021 with the exhibition Ties That Bind – Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and Slovenian Artists Between the Two Wars at the National Museum of Modern Art in Zagreb, Goran Milovanović, the director of the Božidar Jakac Gallery, spoke about the artist Staš Kleindienst and his previous work, as well as the exhibition concept. The exhibition was opened by Miha Fatur, the Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Zagreb.
What is it about Staš Kleindienst’s paintings that intrigues us so much? From a central vantage point in the gallery, enabling us to take in all the displayed artworks at once, we encounter certain familiar scenes that are ingrained in our memories. The landscapes gradually receding towards the horizon are intimate and familiar, and their appearance stirs a feeling of comfort and homeliness within us. Perhaps it is precisely this moment, referred to as “our expression,” that Ljubo Babić sought in the landscapes of Croatian Zagorje and Dalmatia. But that is certainly not Kleindienst’s concept, who always adds small formats to the exhibition installations of large-scale paintings, where the visualizations of stories are even more condensed, drawing us in with a certain magnetism.
Among the first to visit the exhibition were sculptor Peruško Bogdanić, painters Amela Frankl, Duje Jurić, Marijana Pende, Nika Radić, Nenad Marasović, Duško Šibl, Predrag Todorović, Ksenija Turčić, art historians Miha Colner, Krunoslav Kamenov, Feđa Gavrilović, and Leila Topić, graphic designer Ana Zubić, as well as the co-founder and director of the Murtić Foundation, Ranko Murtić, with his wife, painter Nina Atević Murtić, Rumjana Meštrović, daughter-in-law of sculptor Ivan Meštrović, and Vesna Meštrić, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, along with Sanjin Mihelić, director of the Museum of Arts and Crafts.
The exhibition of Staš Kleindienst, realized with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the City of Zagreb, can be visited at the Josip Račić Gallery until 5 May. It is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue in Croatian and English featuring an essay by Goran Milovanović and designed by Ana Zubić.
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © Nacionalni muzej moderne umjetnosti, Zagreb, 2024.