The Museum of Contemporary Art is having a birthday party – and we’re all invited
Visiting Zagreb this weekend? Before you dive into the Christmas market craze, stop by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU) - they have a lot of special treats planned.
MSU is celebrating its 8th birthday – to be more precise, the 8th anniversary of moving from their former venue in the Upper Town and into the new edifice purposely built to house the museum. As a tradition, they’re presenting their visitors with a gift: a full-day programme with a free entrance to all exhibitions and activities, reports Tportal on November 28, 2017.
This year, the birthday party will take place on Saturday, December 2. As the museum is currently hosting a retrospective exhibition titled ‘Rebel With a Vision’, dedicated to the late Vjenceslav Richter, most planned activities will be centred around the life and work of the internationally acclaimed artist. It’s been 100 years since Richter’s birth, and MSU has been paying tribute to the late legend the entire year. Out of the 16 free programmes planned for Saturday, 7 will be dedicated to his work and influence on Croatian art in the second half of the 20th century.
Here are the highlights:
Visitors will be provided with guided tours of the retrospective exhibition, with more than 200 works on display, including architectural models, sculptures, drawings, etchings and paintings. For example, there’s a model of the famous Yugoslav Pavilion Richter designed for the 1958 World Expo in Brussels, once of the most significant projects in the history of modern Croatian architecture. There’s also his anti-gravity sculpture ‘Nada’ (hope), a complex structure measuring more than 4 metres in height that’s getting exhibited in Croatia for the first time.
Yugoslav Pavilion / Wikipedia
Want to learn more about the artist? You can attend the presentation of the bilingual exhibition catalogue ‘Rebel With a Vision’ that’s featuring fifteen essays on Richter’s work, written by art historians and conservators and printed in Croatian and English.
Kids can enjoy a creative workshop titled ‘Spirals in nature’ where they will learn to use Fibonacci’s numbers to create abstract images, evoking some of Richter’s famous works.
You can also use this opportunity to visit the central exhibition of this year’s Photography Days organised by the Tošo Dabac Archive: ‘Tošo Dabac Within the Frame – Photographies of Cultural Heritage’. The exhibition features some of the works of the legendary Croatian photographer that focus on historic and cultural heritage, including modern architecture built in the period from the 40s to the 60s.
The MSU Gallery will host a dance improvisation staged by the Performing Arts Programme (PAP); another activity titled ‘Museum Adventure’ will help young visitors get acquainted with art and culture by introducing them to certain artefacts, getting them inspired to create their own artwork in turn. Cinema fans might enjoy a screening of the film ‘Innocence of Memories’, inspired by the famous work of the acclaimed writer and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk.
Once you’ve satisfied your need for arts and culture, feel free to stop by the souvenir shop (birthday discounts!), get some Richter-themed coffee and cake in the MSU café, and round up the experience in front of the museum – there’s going to be a DJ and ‘sweet birthday surprises’. Looking forward to Saturday!
You can find a detailed schedule (in Croatian) here.
