izv. prof. Marko Tadić

He was born in Sisak in 1979. He graduated in 1997 from the General Gymnasium in Sisak, in the same year he enrolled in the Study of Philosophy and Sociology at the Croatian Studies in Zagreb. In 2001, he enrolled in the painting department at the Accademia Delle Belle Arti in Florence, Italy, where he graduated in 2006. His artistic practice is based on drawing, collage, installations and stop motion animation. He has exhibited at numerous solo and group exhibitions and film festivals in Croatia and abroad (Zagreb, Ljubljana, Vienna, Kassel, Berlin, Los Angeles, New York, Venice). Important exhibitions: "In the Gorges of the Balkans" at the Fridericianum in Kassel in 2003, "Second World" at the Steirischer Herbst Festival in Graz in 2011, "They used to call it Moon" at the Baltic Mill in Newcastle in 2014, and "I am the mouth" at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb in 2018. In 2017, she represented Croatia at the 57. Venice Biennale of Art together with Tina Gverović, and in the same year she exhibited at the first Biennial in Anren, China. In 2018, she participated in the second Industrial Biennial in Labin and Raša. He has won a number of awards: in 2015 he won the Vladimir Nazor Award for the best exhibition of the year, in 2010 he won the third prize at the THT@MSU of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, and in 2008. Radoslav Putar Award for the best young artist of the year. He has participated in numerous residencies and study programs in Helsinki, Vienna, New York, Los Angeles and Frankfurt. In addition to his practice as an independent artist, he works as a leader of numerous art workshops for children of all ages, students and adults. He is a member of the art jury at the SC Gallery in the period 2008 - 2011. Since 2018, he has been a member of the gallery council of the Striegl Gallery in Sisak, and was the president of the art council at the CKO Gallery in Zagreb. Since 2015, he has been working as a guest lecturer at the NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti) in Milan on several subjects related to the theoretical and practical part of exhibition design. Since 2016, he has been working as an assistant, and since 2020 as an assistant professor at the Department of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts.

In our part of the world, certain ideas have been removed and stifled after major socio-political changes. It could be said that they have been eliminated by other facts and events, replacing them with new values, systems and meanings. The research I do illustrates the conflict between personal memories and political history. Photo-paintings, drawings and objects represent fragments of a possible world. Models allow us to take the position of a thinker, a creator; a phenomenological step back to better understand things. At this stage, they are simple, accessible and mobile; they evoke a combination of work and play. Miniaturization as a strategy for demonumentalizing ideas and systems. The latest cycle of works deals with the utopian idea of an "open city". In this city, culture in general, as well as individual works of art, would be a constant presence in its landscape. Monuments, sculptures, films, paintings and "habitable sculptures" will create a new urban landscape based on the synthesis of all the arts. Utopian architecture projects represent an interesting intellectual and creative exercise because they include numerous elements that bring to life incredible and deep concepts of contemporary and futuristic visions of our world. Parallel dimensions emerge from the sea of ideas and concepts that we have all contemplated, giving rise to projects that swim between disciplines, philosophical concepts, language games, visual fantasies, ecological solutions or poetic and literary wanderings. We invent cities and societies that have never existed, never seen before, and yet eerily familiar.

2024 – "The Kitchen", Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb - "Heliopolis", PAV, Turin 2024 – "Playing a Role", Kula Gallery, Split 2023 – "The Aim", Filodrammatica, Rijeka 2022 – "Temporary form", Blok, Zagreb 2021 – "Complicity in the making", with Peter Feriancov, GJK Synagogue, Trnava (Slovakia) 2020 – "Imagine a pattern", Public Open University Zagreb (POUZ), Zagreb 2019 – "The World as a pavilion" (with Vjenceslav Richter), Bozar, Brussels 2019 – "The Speculative View", with Philip Corner (FLUXUS), Striegl Gallery, Sisak – "Duty to document", AK Gallery, Koprivnica