Many thanks to Dagmar Meneghello for this excellent piece on a very important art exhibition in Split. For those of you who do not know Dagmar, she runs one of the most interesting tourist attractions in Dalmatia – the fabulous Meneghello complex on Palmizana – quality food, great accommodation, ultimate peace, art gallery, botanical garden and so much more – To learn more, visit www.palmizana.hr, but only after you have visited this exhibition…
SENSATIONAL EXHIBITION OF CROATIA’S GREATEST PAINTER NIVES KK IN THE HEART OF DIOCLETIAN’S PALACE
DISTURBING ROLE OF LIFE
World painting rarity – a drawing 45 meters long – on which the artist, like doing homework, continuously kept drawing a diary of suffering and joy, of love and death of the everyday
Split made a grand entrance in Europe. In the heart of Diocletian’s palace, in the old City Hall on the Piazza sensational exhibition opened 1. 7. 2013. on three floors, by Croatian greatest living female painter Nives Kavurić Kurtović. An exhibition that would make any European capital proud.
Already in 1967 Paris, by awarding Nives KK with the first prize (Laureate) on the 5th Biennale of Young Artists, gave her the great chance to stay and make a carier in the world. But the artist returned to Zagreb because of her family.
Numerous awards and prizes, teaching on the Academy of Fine Arts and a regular membership on the Croatian Academy of Science and Art confirm the success of her artistic life in Croatia. But, Croatia is a small country of 4 million souls, which makes its great artists constrained from becoming internationally famous.
If for some great Croatian artists already is too late to have a higly rated place in art of Europe to which we now belong, the younger ones have the door open.
Nives Kavurić Kurtović made in Split a small retrospective of her abundand artistic work titled “O-da ruci”, homage to the human working hand. “O-yes to the hand” is a words play which means “Yes to the hand” and also “Ode to the hand”
The newest drawings made in 2013, masterpieces from the peak of her painting on canvas career titled – “Rugs” from the 80’s and the 90’s, and an art world rarity – a drawing that extends through 45 meters – the disturbing roll of life.
Famous art historian Šimat Banov wrote:
“Let’s take that Nives Kavurić Kurtović drawing is a daily task, a diary of suffering and joy, that the Roll of life (“rotulus”) is a course of life, something like from the cradle to the tomb, and that Rugs are the banners of artistic and human certainty and confidence. This is a simple way of looking at issued that never healed in lichens of routine, indifference or fossils of style. Such piece of art in all its aggregate conditions always thinks with all the veins and lymphs of its creature.
Therefore these are three basic though a little too much systematised opinions about something that does not strive to systematization that Nives so much resists. But what is to her a form of a painting?
What is the limit of a painting?
(And the painting itself is a weak word).
As neither in the drawing nor in Rugs or in rolls there is no limit. Everything unscrews like the life itself. No beginning and no end!
…Nives is a term. I do not refer in any physical or artistic term and world space but in terms of life and spirit. I am referring here to the share of solitude in Croatian and world art. This is a way of living, the shape of foreboding, the space of chain honesty that within phalange of too loud people and modern majoretting live quietly and keep silent with a loud voice. She draws with the body and the body draws her. Therefore these creatures can not be mechanically incorporated in structures, in forces of normalization, in some normative chaos and groups.
Problems for “analogies” with so much honesty and stratifications of beings are obvious.
…Of course the conflict with every day life is inevitable.”
Old City Hall on the Piazza in the heart of all city movement and the movement of tourists is probably the most beautiful and beautifully placed space for a temple of art accessible by everyone.
With this exhibition gallery Split makes a grand entrance on Europe’s culture scene.
Congratulations to everyone who made this high culture treat possible. Hopefully they will continue spreading culture here from the old City Hall, culture worthy of Diocletian’s palace.
Nives KK exhibition is open until mid august. Every inhabitant of this regions, coast and islands should see it. It would be preferable, as it is customary in Europe, to travel to Split just to see it.
