Ivan Kožarić
° 1921
Born in Petrinja (HR), lives in Zagreb (HR).
Ivan Kožarić (°1921) is born in Petrinja, Croatia. He lives in Zagreb. Having graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1947, he receives a grant in Paris, and subsequently moves there for several months.
In Paris Kožarić becomes closely acquainted with the contemporary European art of the time. Upon his return to Zagreb he joins the legendary avant-garde group Gorgona as its only sculptor. Kožarić is perhaps best known as a modernist sculptor with an idiosyncratic approach to form and narrative, but he also uses a wide variety of media, such as assemblages, proclamations, photographs, paintings and installations to create an oeuvre that does not fit into any readymade categories.
Kožarić's fundamental contribution to Socialist Yugoslavia's post-war avant-garde is fittingly memorialised through his presence at documenta XI in 2002, which introduces him to a wider global audience.
He sends almost his entire oeuvre, consisting of 897 sculptures, 61 paintings, 373 printed works, 10 photographs and 5297 drawings, thereby challenging not only the convention of the retrospective exhibition, but any notion of art as a static phenomenon that can be neatly organised.
According to Kožarić, art grows just like people grow. Art is alive and must evolve continually. He combines existentialist insight with the formal grammar of constructivism. Each new work questions fundamental principles of the modern sculptural tradition.
Ivan Kožarić, Untitled, 2011. Object.
Ivan Kožarić, Zonder titel, 2011. Painting.
I'm Feeling Like the Bell...
Ivan Kožarić, I'm Feeling Like the Belly of a Lion That Has Eaten Too Much, 2011. Sculpture, metal, canvas, variable dimensions.
Ivan Kožarić, Untitled. Sculpture.
The Encyclopedic Palace
01 June 2013 - 24 November 2013.
The Exhibition Il Palazzo Enciclopedico (The Encyclopedic Palace), curated by Massimilliano Gioni, will be laid out in the Central Pavilion (
The collection XXXIII – T...
The character of a collection reflected the current priorities of the M HKA collection: the evaluation of Antwerp's avant-garde tradition; th
Visite Roeselare – The Gr...
05 May 2016 - 19 June 2016.
The M HKA's contemporary art collection has grown thanks to a combination of acquisitions, donations and long-term loans from various public
GEWELD | VIOLENCE
It seems clear that in the case of Dymphna, the sting – t.i., the violence – is in the tail of her story, in the beheadings and the flickerin
Middle Gate
Editors / Evi Bert, Marte Sommen, Kaat Vannieuwenhuyse, Piet Van Hecke, Lot Wens
Translations / PORTAAL (EN-NL, NL-DE, NL-FR, NL-EN), Steven Tallon (EN-NL), Isabelle Grynberg (EN-FR), Marijke Vermeulen (EN, NL-DE)