The Arty Side of Zagreb

Do you agree that when you’re exploring a new city the best moments are when you meet up with people who can show you hidden corners, brilliant places that you would never have found otherwise? Isn’t there a special thrill about being allowed a peek into the secret life of the residents of a city that’s rather different from your own? That’s we’ve compiled an insiders’ guide to the cultural life of Zagreb, full of things that give the city its flavour and make this a place of which the locals are very proud.

Zagreb has for centuries had quite a defined cultural persona. In the first half of the 19th century, the writers and thinkers who led the Illyrian movement, including Ljudevit Gaj, Ivan Mažuranić and Petar Preradović, formed a literary circle in Zagreb that called upon the Slav nations to find their voice. A few years on, August Šenoa helped crystallise their national romanticism into a realism that made literature popular among the masses.

As the late 19th century segued into the 20th century, Marija Jurić Zagorka was working on her career as the first female Croatian journalist, editor and political commentator, was writing the stories that are still among our best-loved works of literature and was fighting for the equal treatment of women. At the turn of the century, writer A. G. Matoš was developing Croatian modernism, followed by Miroslav Krleža, who went on to become the greatest figure in 20th century Croatian literature. Not all of these people were born in Zagreb, but they lived here, socialised in the coffee-houses and lent their memories to the spirit of the city we know today.

Artists from other spheres who did the same thing include: photographers Tošo Dabac and Marija Braut, who caught the spirit of Zagreb through their work; the creators of the Zagreb Film School which gave the world the cartoon Professor Baltazar, and poet Ivan Slamnik whose poetry was full of humour and who wrote the lyrics for a song called “Barbara” which was a hit in 1975. Zagreb’s music scene reached a golden age in the 1980s when the bands Azra and Haustor were at the forefront of the New Wave, a knowing and vital rock movement which is still wildly popular today. Keeping the flame alive for these legends are upcoming bands such as Mangroove, Less than a Minute, Tom and the Twisters and Diyala.

Zagreb’s avant garde was also represented in the visual art scene by groups such as Exat 51, short for “experimental atelier”, which existed between 1950 and 1956 and bravely opposed the postwar-mandated socialist realism movement. Equally potent was the Biafra art movement of the 1970s which opposed any art which was not designed to change the world. This was only part of a vivid and politically-engaged art scene.

Along came the 1991-1995 war, and everything changed. Croatia gained its independence, but Zagreb lost its vitality. Naturally, the populace was traumatised by war and culturally isolated. Massive demographic shifts changed everything. A new way of life grew up: capitalist, democratic. Many people translated this to mean: shopping. Self-expression became all about having the biggest and most expensive pair of sunglasses. However, slowly but surely, in recent years we are witnessing the rise of a quietly confident stratum of citizens which is choosing a more individual means of expression.

Fashion blogs and style Mecca

The erstwhile Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was no slacker in the style stakes thanks to the relatively liberal regime which saw people haring to-and-fro over the border to buy trendy jeans, pop records and other fripperies. Being so close to Italy perhaps it's not surprising that people here have always taken style seriously. You can see ample evidence of this on a stroll through the city, where on an ordinary working day the populace is dressed to the nines, and morning coffee on Sunday is a sight to behold.


Silvio Vujičić

One Croatian blogger, young Zagreb-based design graduate Antonija Butković, is fascinated by the unusual approach to style taken by many people in Zagreb despite the sometimes caustic conservative majority. She posts beautiful photographs documenting her meetings with doyens of Zagreb street style. You’ll also find information on cultural happenings, all written in English. Antonija was recently shortlisted to contribute to British Vogue. Check out her site at http://croator.net.

Among the most interesting places to find Croatian designs (among international ones too) is Prostor (“the Room”), a space tucked behind Mesnička 5 used by a self-styled “multirational company” which offers a selection of clothing, books and music, as well as putting on art exhibitions. We think you will like. Take a look at www.multiracionalnakompanija.com.

On a more mainstream note, there are two established fashion events in Zagreb, Zagreb Fashion Week and Cro-a-Porter, which showcase the more established designers. In 2010 a new platform has emerged for upcoming designers: the Fashion Wardrobe. Participants are mainly final year fashion students. Croatian designers you might want to look out for include Robert Sever, I-gle, Renata Svetić, Amarie and Igor Klarić.

All that glitters

As well as chic clothes, in Zagreb you can find excellent one-off pieces of jewellery made by local designers working in unusual materials to create sometimes offbeat designs. Designer Rok Lumezi has an atelier in Tkalčićeva ulica where you can watch him work and pick up one of his creations – tough yet subtle, organic and industrial. Just outside the city in Velika Gorica is the workshop of Zlatko Odrčić who creates chunky statement pieces in silver, copper and brass. Karolina Pernar creates small versions of her “linear sculptures” which you can wear as jewellery. Karolina is only 30 but her work already has an international following: learn more at www.kp-k.eu. You also might want to look out for Davor Šuk, Nenad Roban, Vera Dajht Kralj, Luka Petrinjak and others.

Zagreb’s applied design talents don’t stop at fashion; there’s plenty to get excited about in product design too. Since the powers that be are wondrously slow to support anything that might result in exports, jobs or silly things like that, a group of enthusiasts took matters into their own hands last year and held the first ReAktor – an evening showcasing cutting-edge product designers. Held in the Zagreb Dance Centre (yes, Zagreb has an excellent modern dance scene too), it was a brilliant display of beautifully crafted and proportioned household objects. We hope that ReAktor will go from strength to strength.
Finally, graphic design duo Marko Šesnić i Goran Turković in September were the proud winners of a world-renowned Red Dot award for the exhibition they designed for their friend Vanya Cuculić, himself a graphic designer. Working with a tiny space and even smaller budget, the design was a witty recreation of Cuculić’s home.






Theatre extraordinaire

Speaking of which, it’s high time we mentioned Croatian theatre. It’s long been recognised that theatre is one of Croatia’s strengths. But what’s up and coming right now? One interesting project is Badco, a performance collective consisting of four choreographers / dancers, two dramatists and a philosopher. They are holding a retrospective of their work since they set up in 2002. Info: www.badco.hr, Lovro Rumiha, lovro@badco.hr, 098 494 059.
A brand new project launched in Autumn 2010 is the Nu:Write Theatre Festival, the brainchild of Marko Cindrić, the first Croatian person to have studied at the prestigious Oxford  School of Drama in the UK. Now living in Zagreb, Marko is creating a “mini Edinburgh Fringe” here, aiming to enable the free flow of contacts and ideas between Croatian actors and their counterparts from all over the world. The festival promises to be an eclectic addition to Zagreb’s cultural life, and Marko aims to establish a new drama school here. Take a look at www.nuwritefestival.com. 
Zagreb has plenty of theatre for children too.
Also broad in scope is the Tenda Gialla (Yellow Curtain) international culture camp which took place for the first time in November 2010, acting as a hub for interaction between artists and performers of all kinds from Zagreb, Vienna and Rome. Also in a freestyle vein is the MaxArtFest, an uncensored (in the political sense) festival of contemporary art. Info: www.maxartfest.com.
An interesting multidisciplinary project is the Night Lab. Run by the theatre &TD once a year, it’s a forum for new performance artists of all kinds (actors, dancers, musicians, singers, circus performers, installation artists etc.) to make three minute pitches presenting their work.

Celluloid scene

Croatian film, for so long in the shadows, is getting its moment in the sun too, it seems. Young Zagreb filmmakers Boris Poljak and Damir Čučić showed their film “Sky Spirits” in Milan in November 2010. The film explores the effects of fireworks in the sky using visual sampling techniques. This is just one of a series of eight experimental films the duo is creating. Čučić also showed the film “Fractals” in Egypt last autumn. This involved putting a giant jelly containing bits of gold on a turntable, spinning it and processing the film to create all kinds of trippy effects.
A little more down to earth is the story of Zagreb’s tram no. 13 by Irena Škorić – see our interview with her. Zdravko Mustaća is another name to watch: a prolific creator of short films often shown at Zagreb’s film festivals and independent cinemas. In 2009 he released his first experimental feature about two people stuck in a lift – a restrictive concept if ever there was one.
Zagreb has a number of cinemas showing independent film of all kinds, as well as a roster of film festivals covering genres including documentaries, short film and animations. You might like to look out for the following filmmakers from this region who have been doing the rounds of the international festivals last autumn with the following flicks:
Marko Meštrović – animation “No Sleep Won’t Kill You”, Jasmila Zbanić – “On the Path” - actress Zrinka Cvitešić nominated for the Best European Actress Award, Branko Schmidt – “Metastasis”, Srđan Karanović – “Besa”, Nikša Sviličića – “I Believe in Angels”, Liliana Resnick – “Reopening the Past”  - winner of a POOL 10 Festival award, Berlin.



Street Art

You might not be so keen on mindless graffiti, but whatever your thoughts on the matter it’s hard to pass by the wall along the railway on Zagreb’s Branimirova ulica without being struck by the technical brilliance and explosive creativity of street art.

What you are looking at here is the Zagreb Museum of Street Art – a museum with no curators, no security guards and that lasts until it’s covered up, washed away or meets its maker for some other reason.

This otherwise unlovely wall was painted for the first time in 1987 by Croatian artists in readiness for the Universiade – the World University Games which was held in Zagreb in that year. The next time the wall received a facelift was in 1999 during a street art campaign warning of the dangers of drug use. The current mural is the result of a competition held in 2010 to find the artists with the best ideas to contribute to the wall.

The project not only brightens up a grey part of the city but is a point of communication between citizens and authorities, in particular representing the energy of the younger generations. It is run by a non-profit organization that plans in the future to put the mural and videos showing its creation online; to create a temporary gallery in one of the city’s many disused spaces and to carry on the work begun by the opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art in revitalizing the large Novi Zagreb districts south of the River Sava.

Also using the city as a canvas to get a message across is puma34. Nobody quite knows who he or she is (or they are), but the style is distinctive – collage run amok. Puma34 is just one of a loose gathering of art school types living in various locations (Croatia, Slovenia, UK) who choose this style of expression – something like UK graffiti artist Banksy’s open air political commentary, but each with his or her own artistic style. Visit the Puma34 blog at http://puma34.blogspot.com/ - the latest word is that there will be no more posts on or off the web, but the gallery is fun to look at and there’s a bunch of links to other artists’ sites which we think you’ll find interesting.

Another virtual gallery well worth checking out is Marinko Sudac’s collection of avant garde art spanning the years 1915-1989, available with English text at http://www.avantgarde-museum.com/kolekcija/ht/index.php?lang=en. Or, if you’d prefer to visit a traditional gallery, for young local artists the galleries to head for are Marisall (Mesnička 5), Stančić (Kneza Mislava 11), Kranjčar (Kaptol 26), Nova (Teslina 7) and Nano (Gajeva 26).

Works by Elvis Krstulović, Marin Majić, Goran Škofić, Josip Tirić and Zlatan Vehabović were selected for an exhibition titled “After the Fall” at the Hudson Valley Centre for Contemporary Art (Peekskill, NY), exploring the twenty years that have passed since the collapse of Communism in Europe. The exhibition runs till the end of June 2011 before moving to the Knoxville Museum. And winners of the only Croatian prize for young contemporary artists last year were Tonka Maleković, Livio Rajh, Davor Sanvicenti and Dragana Sapanjoš.

You can also meet young artists and perhaps pick up an original work at the annual Zagreb Academy of Visual Arts Open Day, which is usually held in Spring. Keep an eye on the Academy’s website at www.alu.hr. The Academy is at Jabukovac 10.

Camera obscura

There is also a pretty strong photographic tradition in Croatia, and you can always find an exhibition on at Fotoklub Zagreb (Ilica 29, 3rd floor), which also has a website with some introductory information about Croatian photography in English and online exhibitions at www.croatian-photography.com/en. The Fotoklub also organises the Zagreb Salon in November, an international exhibition of photography. Info: www.fotoklubzagreb.hr. New names to look out for include: Robert Ballon, Dejan Barić, Valentina Bunić, Helena Cuculić, Sanja Grgić, Maja Jokić, Zvonimir Kosinjski, Ines Lojna Funtak, Šime Lugarov, Ana Mrazek, Izidor Tačković, Gadaf Zulbeari and Marijana Žvan.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that a great night out is Museum Night, when most museums in Zagreb (and indeed across Croatia) throw their doors open to visitors until 1 a.m. Entry is free, free city transport is laid on, hip radio station Radio 101 will be supplying the tunes and local restaurants will have extended opening hours. Thousands of people race from one museum to the next; it’s very social and a lot of fun. Info: www.hrmud.hr.
This is just a whistle-stop tour that skims the surface of Zagreb’s cultural life – there’s too much going on to mention. So stay tuned, and we’ll keep you informed when there’s hot new stuff on that you should know about.