Ivan Mestrovic,
Adam, 1939 – 1941,
Split orahovina, 296,5 x 95 x 90,5 cm / walnut wood, 296,5 x 95 x 90,5 cm
Eva, 1939 – 1941,
Split orahovina, 324,5 x 75 x 72,5 cm / walnut wood, 324,5 x 75 x 72,5 cm

Adam and Eve
Two figures of religious theme are made in a hard walnut wood. Religious themes take extremely important place within the opus of Ivan Mestrovic. The first sculptures of that thematic were made in 1907. Both sculptures are made in form of “constructive figure” – Caryatides, which Ivan Meptrovi´c was doing during all of his creative era. Adam and Eve, on display in Ivan Mestrovic Gallery are exceptional for their dimensions, and by their tectonics confirm that they were planned for some monumental or architectonic
frame.

Bez naziva / Untitled, 2004
guma, dimenzije promjenjive / Rubber, variable dimension
Musko i zensko donje rublje uobliceno crnom gumom, dimenzija prilagodenih
skulpurama Adama i Eve / Male and female underwear made of rubber,
dimension adjusted to sculptures of Adam (h.299 cm) and Eve (h. 324 cm),
odlozeno na pod ispred drvenih figura / layed on floor in front of wooden figures

Spatial thinking in the context of painting medium and the translation of the elements of reality into the language of industrial material, stand out as the leading clues for the following of the visual exploration by Viktor Popovic. The control of gesture, that is, of the trace of action, based in the best tradition of the European art of the second half of the twentieth century, registers as an important aspect in the appreciation of the great part of this artist’s production.
The meeting of the quieted gesture transposed into the space of museum exhibition and the amplified gesture of the sculptures by Ivan Mestrovic, inspired by religious themes, is the challenge which provokes the viewer to a dichotomous experience. Viktor’s work stimulates the body as a primary receptor of stimulus, while the eye of the viewer balances with the expression of Mestrovic’s creation. Precisely the material as the object of creative intervention becomes crucially important to both artists - the “traditional” sculptor’s material of Ivan Mestrovic and the “contemporary” industrial material of the young artist.

Dalibor Prancevic

Ivan Mestrovic, Job / Giobbe, 1946
bronca / bronze, 121 x 106 x 85 cm
vl. / belonging to FIM – Galerija Ivana Mestrovica,
Split, Hrvatska / Croatia

Job, one of the most known works of Ivan Mestrovic, outstanding Croatian sculptor, was conceived as a result of the traumatic experience of World War II. In 1941 was the artist imprisoned by the fascists in Zagreb, where he was nevertheless underhandedly given some sheet s on which he could draw. In that difficult context did he carry out several drawings, amongst whic h Job stands out. After the Liberation, in Rome, this drawing inspired the artist the carrying out
of the homonymous sculpture, which is admirable because of its intensity, dramatic force, movement and expressiveness. Both works are kept in the Mestrovic Gallery in Split.

Graziano Vignolo
Roden u / Born in Genova, 1981
Zivi i radi u / He lives and works in Genova
dis_graziano@yahoo.it

Lamenti incatenati, 2004
zeljezo, fotografski ispis, zvuk / iron, photographic prints, sound

Visiting the Mestrovic Foundation in Split, Graziano Vignolo has made a virtual journey through the culture, the way of thinking and the passions of sculptor Ivan Meptrovi´c thus retaining a strong suggestion, as well as a deep sense of up-to-dateness. The figure of Job, of whom Ivan Mestrovic set up a sculpture portrait during his imprisonment, has enticed Vignolo’s imaginary. The artist has conceived a Mestrovic Job and has re-unified the thought which originates the project (the drowing), the work itself and thespace-prison, by a dramatic rendering obtained through light and sound. An evocative interpretation of the work, full of references to the present time and to the
different images of detentions, to the bridling of human dignity and to the patience and toil required to defend it.

Emilia Marasco

Mestrovic Foundation

The Ivan Mestrovic Palace was built in Split between 1931 and 1939. Mestrovic himself made the original plans based on his own design, the architects Harold Bilinic and Lavoslav Horvat developed them, and the builder Marin Marasovic was in charge of the works. The construction was built section by section, starting from the East and ending with the western parts, and it was designed to serve living, working, and exhibition purposes.

Actual work, 2004
internet video

Guillaume Ségur is pursuing his work about time and environment at the Mestrovic Museum in Split. He intends to develop a virtual play, aligned to the Museum’s website.
A camera is following a lambda visitor. This deambulation within the museum space echoes the virtual visit, the “virtual walk”, which is proposed on the web: framed drawings offered for view without providing any spatial dimension.
This play is trying to reinstate the visit into subjectivity, into the real. Thus, this physically fearful proposal doubles the experience of the Museum. Nevertheless, its length will be the same as for the website and the sound background will be a mix of the visitor’s tale, recorded a posteriori. He narrates what he has just seen, what he remembers and thus he suggests a different temporality, introduces his own perception, his own interpretation. Game and interference between real and virtual: Guillaume invents an intermediate which oscillates between space and time.

Estelle Nabeyrat