KRISTIAN KOŽUL

RECOLLECTIONS

07/07/2023 – 08/22/2023

Kristian Kožul presents a landscape of sculptures as a method of remembering. What we remember is often determined by how we remember, and we tend to think of past exhibitions as isolated spatiotemporal points. Reconstructing 20 years of creativity, Kožul combines individual achievements and a wide range of cycles into a unique topography of his own work, pointing to strong continuity and mutuality of methods, ideas, and approaches. With this exhibition of memories, Kožul spatializes his (and our) memory anew, intertwining early and recent works in a fresh and again current context.

The selection of objects covers the period from 2003 to 2023 and offers a chronology of the development of a sculptural practice: from the graduate cycle Discoware (2003), wheelchair and other orthopedic aids plastered with glittering disco mirrors with which the artist introduces his principles of meticulous performance of the fetishization of the invisible; to more recent “forensic” research in biomorphic installations with a much more sterile impression (Contagious effigies, 2023), which continues to question collective memory and provoke a feeling of discomfort.

Kožul’s key works in the field of sculpture are exhibited, with which he shows his permanent interest in manipulating the incompatible, in creating objects whose primary function is in opposition to effective decoration, so he covers the children’s crib with sado-mazo iconography (Asylum, 2004), he turns war equipment into a local souvenir by decorating helmets and tools with ethnic motifs of licitari and tablets (Licitari, 2004), and Balkanska zvona, Feast (2006) encrusted with bullets and covered with fine and soft lace. The obsession with fair spectacles, clichéd myths, and kitsch (Corn of plenty, 2003, Tease, 2004, American Playground, 2011) is refined in recent works towards almost clinical constructs (Forensic Folklore: The Archipelago, 2018, Sisyphus exalted, 2019. ); Kožul lets abstract forms take the place of utilitarian objects and busts, while he continues to insist on unusual combinations of materials and shapes, as well as his own desire to create irresistible objects that challenge and surprise the observer.

Remaining consistent with leaving the interpretation of the work to the viewer, Kožul also wants to encourage the freedom of understanding the works with this exhibition. The frieze of questions that flows around the pedestals introduces the dramaturgical effect of directly addressing the observers, stimulates them, and leads them to reconsider established thoughts about the value of art, collecting and the authenticity of artistic concepts, but also tries to raise awareness of the emotional reception of art, thus highlighting the purposefulness of the works and the importance of the audience in the final creation meanings.

Kristian Kožul was born in 1975 in Munich, he lives and works in Zagreb. He began his education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and continued at the art academy Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he graduated in 2002 in the class of Prof. Irmin Kamp.

Among the solo exhibitions, he exhibited in Lauba, HDLU and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Zagreb, Croatia), Goff+Rosenthal Gallery and Pablo’s Birthday Gallery (New York, USA), TZR Gallery (Düsseldorf, Germany), Anhava Gallery (Helsinki, Finland), Art Salon (Celje, Slovenia), Kibla Gallery (Maribor, Slovenia), Minorita Gallery (Graz, Austria).

He participated in numerous group exhibitions, such as International projects PS1/MoMa, New York, USA, 2005; Contemporary Art Biennale, Beijing, China, 2005; Criss-Cross, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia, 2007; Boys Craft, Haifa Museum, Israel, 2008; Summer Camp, Exile Gallery, Berlin, 2010; Bandits, Pirates & Outlaws – Lost Coast Culture Machine, Fort Bragg, USA, 2010; B-B-B-BAD, Anna Kuster Gallery, New York, USA, 2011.

He is the winner of a number of awards, including the Award for the best exhibition of the year (HDLU, 2018), the 2nd award T-HT at MSU for the tandem Žižić/Kožul (MSU, 2014), the Josip Račić Award (2007), the Award for contemporary art Filip Trade (2004) and the Award of the 8th Croatian Sculpture Triennale (2003).

His works are in private and museum collections in Croatia and abroad.