The exhibition, organised by the Zagreb-based curatorial collective WHW (Who, How and for Whom), "brings together six women artists from decidedly different places and of different generations, using distinct methods of aesthetic investigation through works situated within various historical and social contexts, as well as within different genealogies of contemporary art and of its role within society. Yet their work testifies to parallel preoccupations across different social and artistic matrices that all share a keen interest in investigating the ways in which social norms become naturalized, and the role images play in this process," the gallery says on its website.
"While many works deal with issues of women's struggle for emancipation and equality, both historically and in contemporary conditions, the exhibition revolves around different approaches to ways of looking and seeing. It attempts to sketch out the interplay of relations between what we obstinately refuse to see and what we desire to see. Appropriation, collage, critical juxtaposition, reworking of documentary approach, and the combining of various cultural references are among the chief strategies that artists in the exhibition use in order to confront and subvert perceptions of what is customary, normal, and taken for granted. The works presented strive to make contradictions apparent, to expose the mechanisms through which meaning is formed through visuality, and to dispute the processes through which the interpretation of history is constructed," it adds.
The exhibition will also feature works by Berlin-based American artist Rajkamal Kahlon, Russian artist Victoria Lomasko, Chilean poet, performer and political activist Cecilia Vicuna, and Argentinian visual artist Carla Zaccagnini.
Sanja Ivekovic is the first woman in the Yugoslav/Croatian art scene to clearly express a feminist attitude. Her collages explore the image a woman is expected to project of herself in order not to be branded as improper or even dangerous, and its relation to the image of femininity produced by mass media.
OKO, who lives in London and Zagreb, uses street art techniques to create phantasmagorical displays, often humorous and disconcerting at the same time.
The WHW collective was formed in 1999 and its members are Ivet Curlin, Ana Devic, Natasa Ilic and Sabina Sabolovic, as well as designer and publicist Dejan Krsic. It organises a range of production, exhibition and publishing projects.
The exhibition closes on June 6.