Zlatko Kopljar: ICONOCLASM in the End. (Works from 1990–2024)
The entire possible exhibition space in the Minorite Monastery in Graz will be made available for Zlatko Kopljar's comprehensive and complex work: The courtyard in front of the Minorite Hall, in which the remains of a former concentration camp will be set up, the Franciscan Hall, in which completely new works of painting (‘stripe painting’) will be shown for the first time ever, the cells, in which individual ‘Constructions’ will be presented (and the attic of the Minorite Monastery, in which various large-format photo formats and videos (K 9, K 11, K 12, K 13, K 14, K 15, K 16) can be experienced. The exhibition presents a comprehensive approach to his work, spanning a period of more than 30 years. With this show, Zlatko Kopljar is donating his entire artistic oeuvre to the KULTUMUSEUM Graz.
Kopljar's artistic training in Venice was shortly before the outbreak of the Balkan war in his home country. One of Kopljar's first exhibitions was entitled ‘Sacrifices’. As a very young artist, Kopljar presented himself to the Zagreb public 32 years ago (1992) in the exhibition ‘Sacrifice’ (in the Cekao Gallery). He used both the ritual gestures of the Old Testament (sacrifice, purification, cleansing) and materials that are characterised by a great potential for interpretation (blood, honey). Kopljar thus created the biblical quartet of sin-sacrifice-cleansing-purification. In a figurative sense, the four pillars of the exhibition stood for four questions: the power of sin, the greatness of the sacrifice, the possibility of absolution and the path to purification. Careful execution, the whiteness of the room and a few drops of blood were reminiscent of purgatory and emphasised the sacred atmosphere, which fit the spiritual aspect of the exhibition like a glove.
A few years later, he once again took up a biblical motif: ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac’ (1995) In terms of religious history, the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham is seen as the end of human sacrifice for the deity.But did it stay that way?Zlatko Kopljar's early work, written immediately after the Balkan War, is a disturbing reminder of Abraham's sacrifice.Why has God not intervened today - in the murder and sacrifice of his own ‘sons’ - as he once did in the Bible?Zlatko Kopljar's treatment of Isaac is simply about the courage not to do so.It was modelled on Caravaggio's Sacrifice of Abraham.But there an angel holds the sacrificer back - in Kopljar's work, it is only the outward gaze of the viewer. ‘I don't believe in angels,’ says the artist. ‘But I do believe in courage, in the courage not to do it. “In ”Love-Shot’ (1996), Zlatko Kopljar engraved the word for ‘In Love’ in Croatian, English and Latin on a projectile. He drove to a wooded hill near Zagreb, where the audience and his gun were waiting for him. The artist loaded the gun and fired it blindly into the night. He hoped that the bullet of love would land in fertile soil and eventually sprout.
In 1995, he began his ‘Constructions’, which he henceforth referred to simply as ‘K ’s. They are documentations of impressive performances that often leave behind ‘relics’.‘K6’, for example, shows a graffiti on a street that marked the time and place of his father's death in the bombing (23 September 1992).10 days later, this graffiti had disappeared again due to passing cars. A total of 22 constructions were to be created between 1995 and 2018.
Gradually, the figure of the man in the reflective suit is developed, the protagonist of Kopljar's video works, who configures a ‘persona’ with which viewers can identify, like a lightning rod for human longing. In more recent works, scale models of objects offer viewers a surface onto which they can alternately project their own associations, their admiration or their unease.
Questions of metaphysics have been a continuous motif in Kopljar's work for more than three decades; he has explored almost all variants of artistic expression from performance, photography, film, sculpture and (memory) art. For the past three years, he has decided to paint for the first and only time. He consistently avoids any overt message. They are ‘stripe paintings’, but on closer inspection they reveal a thoroughly subjective painting gesture, with which he also distances himself from the cancellation of the artist's ego.