Mia Matijević / New collection
Solo exhibition
FROM THE PREFACE OF THE EXHIBITION
"At the center of the New Collection are new idols and their ideals. The very title of the exhibition, as well as the works it contains, are part of Debord's society of spectacle: rapid change of trends, overproduction and unstoppable placement of advertisements that leads to the overloading of visual content in private and public space. In the company of the spectacle, a kitsch man who designs his life according to the instructions of the mass media is comfortably situated. It is also the starting point for thinking about postmodern man, his concern for his own appearance and its molding within the parameters of the advertising industry.
The new collection ironically reflects on the fiction of a comfortable life in which the painter reinterprets popular culture, drawing on the superficial grotesque that hides under the shallow and polished surface. The superficiality of earthly pleasures is embodied in the flat, retouched and collaged modeling of the characters. Their rubber impostures are staged, but shaky like marionettes, while the masks carry the symbol of a screen instead of faces. Generic and stiff smiles with genuinely naïve looks are only part of the effort to show life as idyllic, that is, to create a new, polished version of reality that does not exist anywhere except in the media simulacrum through the Image.
The protagonists of these plane trees are followers of the European painting tradition: Jupiter, the newborn Venus and the kidnapped Sabine women. From the past Romanticism of the 19th century, Ophelia joins them, and their presence in the gallery is complemented by icons without an ascribed identity. This creates an anachronism between traditional motifs, which remind the contemporary observer of the historical doctrine of the Image, and the contemporary understanding of the Image shaped by the media. The main characters become inhabitants of a brave new world who, rejoicing in the pastime, celebrate life in a Dionysian way through a parade of superficial pleasures. In the company of the spectacle, in the words of the author, "design is more important than the content itself, the advertisement is more important than the product, and the photography of the scene is more important than the experience."
Hana Katanić
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Mia Matijević was born in 1995 in Požega. In 2010, she enrolled in the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb and graduated in 2014. In the same year, she enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, where she is currently a second-year graduate student in the class of Assoc. prof. art. Tomislav Buntak. In the last few years, she has been actively exhibiting at group exhibitions (in Zagreb at the Croatian Association of Artists, Šira Gallery, Josip Račić Gallery, Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, Panacea Gallery, Laval Nugent Gallery, in Split at the Old City Hall, in Zaprešić at Vršilnica, Novi Dvori, Razvid Gallery, in Požega at the City Museum, Ciraki Gallery, etc.). So far, she has participated in the Residency Program De/Image Construction in Leipzig (Germany) during June 2019, and during September and October 2019 she will perform her project on the Air Kaunas program as part of CreArt in Kaunas (Lithuania).
During 2016 and 2017, she organized and led the Art Practicum for students of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. She is the recipient of a special Rector's Award for the academic year 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 and 2017/2018, the Rector's Award for team scientific and artistic work in the field of art in 2017/2018 and a commendation from the Academy of Fine Arts for successful work during the years 2015/2016 and 2016/2017. During 2017 and 2018, she organized and led an art therapy program at the Mother's Home in the Children's Home in Nazorova.
The exhibition is financed by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia and the City Office for Culture of the City of Zagreb.
The exhibition at the Šira Gallery can be viewed during the Gallery's working hours (Mon-Fri: 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., 6 p.m. – 8 p.m., Saturdays: 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.) until September 24, 2020.
