....Marijan Molnar’s solo exhibition, entitled Inventory, provides a welcome example of the compelling and sustainable understanding of visual arts as a cognitive discipline that communicates in the fastest way possible – based on analytical visual concepts – and, in a stimulating manner deliberates about reality and the world we inhabit. Historically, Marijan Molnar is a representative of the second wave of conceptual art that appeared in the Croatian cultural circle in the mid-1970s under the syntagma and name of the New Art Practice. Despite being a successful artist working in the circle of the renowned Group of Six Artists and the Podroom Gallery, because of his unpretentious nature, Molnar remained a somewhat marginal, and yet the most persistent and creatively most diverse artistic personality of the entire period. Precisely for this reason, there is an upsurge of professional interest in his oeuvre both at national and international levels. The continuity and development of Molnar’s practice transferred this, by now historic creative paradigm, into the 21st century and its radically transformed existential context of the supremacy of liberal capitalism that all social relations are derived from, including those in the narrower cultural context, and also in countries like Croatia. In the catalogue foreword, the philosopher, theoretician, critic and artist Marina Gržinić, from the angle close to the gender standpoint, masterfully interpreted development of Molnar’s practice and his attitude towards its socio-political context. In the exhibition, the public will have a chance to see Molnar’s older and more recent works, i.e. how the ‘New Art Practice’ and ideological set it was formed around evolved, in terms of media, production and representation from its beginnings until today, and will also be able to understand why it is probably more relevant today than in the time it was created. (from the introductory text by Branko Franceschi)
On view till 30 September 2018.
