Vojin Bakić: The Principle of Hope

On the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the birth of Vojin Bakić, one of the most important Croatian sculptors of the 20th century, the recently renovated Bjelovar City Museum is opening the exhibition Vojin Bakić: The Principle of Hope. This is the first comprehensive presentation of Bakić's character and work in his hometown in sixty years; his last solo exhibition was held back in 1966.

The curator of the exhibition is Hana Ćurak, an anthropologist and researcher, who developed the concept at the invitation and in dialogue with the curatorial collective Što, kako i za koka / WHW. The authors of the exhibition are architects Ana Martina Bakić and Vjera Bakić, heirs of the artist's oeuvre. An integral part of the exhibition also includes works by artists David Maljković, Miloš Trakilović and Sara Salamon.

The exhibition starts from the question: what does the work of Vojin Bakić mean today at a time of intensified historical revisionism and systematic suppression of public memory? Living and working in conditions of war, political upheaval and profound social transformations, Bakić developed an artistic language whose thematic basis is the ideas of solidarity, collective responsibility and hope for a more just society. His practice was deeply marked by the murder of four younger brothers in the Jadovno concentration camp system, but despite this, the artist did not accept hopelessness: his sculptures persistently searched for a form that could express the belief that such violence should never be repeated.

The specificity of this exhibition compared to previous presentations of Bakić's work is the emphasized collective curatorial work (WHW and the Bakić family with Hana Ćurak), an innovative theoretical framework and a focus on the family context and the context of the city in which he grew up. Insisting on an ethical reading of hope, the continuity of the values ​​that Bakić represented and the constant reflection on the (im)possibility of a new social imaginary, the exhibition expands the museum framework and activates it as a method of shared learning. By intervening in Bakić's birthplace in the immediate vicinity of the Museum, which will be the Bakić House after reconstruction, the exhibition positions Bjelovar as one of the key places for archival, disciplinary and spatial readings of Bakić's work.

About the artist:

Vojin Bakić (Bjelovar, 1915 – Zagreb, 1992) is one of the most important internationally recognized Croatian sculptors of the 20th century. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, in the class of Frano Kršinić, and specialized under Ivan Meštrović. He developed a recognizable style that leads from figuration to radically abstract surfaces that decompose volume and enter into an active relationship with space and light, especially visible in cycles such as Leafed and Light-bearing Forms. He is the author of a series of monumental monuments in Kamenska, Dotrščina, Valjevo, Petrova gora and Kragujevac. Since the 1950s, he has participated in important international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, Documenta in Kassel and EXPO 58 in Brussels. His work, marked by post-war devastation and changes in political regimes, is now one of the key chapters of modernist sculpture and regional heritage of memory.

The exhibition is realized in partnership with the City of Bjelovar and the Bjelovar City Museum, with the support of the Glyptotek HAZU, the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, the National Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka, the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Croatia.

The honorary patrons of the exhibition are the President of the Republic of Croatia, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of the Republic of Croatia.

Exhibition partners: BCS, Ceste, d. d., DS gradnja, JANAF d. d., Logička matrica, Euroherc osiguranje d. d., Intra Lighting, Termoplin, Veselčić, Adris Foundation, Rotor, Protecta Horvat, Provectus Capital Partners and Vetti group d.o.o.

Media partners: Bjelovar.info, Novosti, Vida TV, Kulturpunkt, H-Alter.