- Vlatka Horvat
Surroundings
Renata Fabbri is pleased to present Surroundings, Vlatka Horvat’s first show at the gallery, and her first solo exhibition in Italy.
In the show, which works across all of the gallery’s spaces, Vlatka Horvat approaches the idea of horizon line as spatial limit and border whilst at the same time exploring its powerful and contradictory metaphorical status as aspirational destination. In works manifested in different forms and media – altered photographic image, collage, sculpture, and fragile site-responsive material interventions – she renders the horizon as an edge of space and visibility, and as a sign or site of future potential and action.
Using simple gestures she frequently works with – cutting and severing, and then relocating parts of objects and images, or repairing them with decidedly inadequate means – Vlatka Horvat constructs new, makeshift incarnations of the human figure, of landscape, of formerly utilitarian objects. In all of the works presented in the show, she follows a double logic of either connecting, or interrupting, particular lines in her source images, in the physical space, and in everyday objects – highlighting and making visible certain formal and material properties of items she disassembles and then reconstitutes, whilst also invoking their imaginary and associative possibilities.
Throughout Surroundings, Vlatka Horvat works and reworks the line as a compositional element central to framing and making readable human presence in space, approaching the line both as a means of tracing our presence and as a trace left by our presence. In addition to the compositional significance of the line – its function to delineate space, demarcate limits and boundaries, and trace trajectories – the show also focuses on the line as a common metaphor for continuity, infinity and distance and as a sign of future, of possibility, and of the end.
Renata Fabbri is pleased to present Surroundings, Vlatka Horvat’s first show at the gallery, and her first solo exhibition in Italy.
In the show, which works across all of the gallery’s spaces, Vlatka Horvat approaches the idea of horizon line as spatial limit and border whilst at the same time exploring its powerful and contradictory metaphorical status as aspirational destination. In works manifested in different forms and media – altered photographic image, collage, sculpture, and fragile site-responsive material interventions – she renders the horizon as an edge of space and visibility, and as a sign or site of future potential and action.
Using simple gestures she frequently works with – cutting and severing, and then relocating parts of objects and images, or repairing them with decidedly inadequate means – Vlatka Horvat constructs new, makeshift incarnations of the human figure, of landscape, of formerly utilitarian objects. In all of the works presented in the show, she follows a double logic of either connecting, or interrupting, particular lines in her source images, in the physical space, and in everyday objects – highlighting and making visible certain formal and material properties of items she disassembles and then reconstitutes, whilst also invoking their imaginary and associative possibilities.
Throughout Surroundings, Vlatka Horvat works and reworks the line as a compositional element central to framing and making readable human presence in space, approaching the line both as a means of tracing our presence and as a trace left by our presence. In addition to the compositional significance of the line – its function to delineate space, demarcate limits and boundaries, and trace trajectories – the show also focuses on the line as a common metaphor for continuity, infinity and distance and as a sign of future, of possibility, and of the end.
Vlatka Horvat, Tree Line (with Insert), 2014Inkjet print collage on box mount masonite, sand paper, acrylic gel, 19,7x25,5 cm
Vlatka Horvat, Tree Line (with Edges), 2017Inkjet print collage on MDF, corrugated cardboard, acrylic gel, 19,7x25 cm
Vlatka Horvat, Tree Line (with Sparkles), 2017Inkjet print mounted on MDF, foam rubber, acrylic gel, 19.7x25 cm
Vlatka Horvat, Tree Line (with Mesh), 2017Inkjet print mounted on MDF, plastic mesh, acrylic gel, 19.7x26.5 cm
Vlatka Horvat, Tree Line (with Shapes), 2017Inkjet print mounted on MDF, wood, acrylic gel, 19.7x25 cm
Vlatka Horvat, At Some Length, 2017Cotton twine, elastic, artist tape, 863 cm long
Vlatka Horvat, Fixed Holes, 2017Corrugated cardboard, felt, electrical tape, 3x150x145 cm, courtesy Renata Fabbri
Vlatka Horvat, Fractions, 2017Found door stoppers, 4.5x40x40 cm
Vlatka Horvat, Set Right (Table Leg), Set Right (Tabletop), 2016Table Leg: Modified wooden table, corrugated cardboard, electrical tape, 72x79x55 cm
Tabletop: Modified wooden table, corrugated cardboard, electrical tape, 71.5x79x49 cm
Vlatka Horvat, End in Sight (04), 2017Giclée print collage on Hahnemuhle Rag, 52x39,7 cm
Vlatka Horvat, End in Sight (07), 2017Giclée print collage on Hahnemühle Photo Rag. Unframed: 42x29.7 cm / Framed: 52x39.7 cm
Vlatka Horvat, End in Sight (06), 2017Giclée print collage on Hahnemühle Photo Rag. Unframed: 42x29.7 cm / Framed: 52x39.7 cm
Vlatka Horvat, End in Sight (05), 2017Giclée print collage on Hahnemühle Photo Rag. Unframed: 42x29.7 cm / Framed: 52x39.7 cm
Vlatka Horvat, End in Sight (04), 2017Giclée print collage on Hahnemühle Photo Rag. Unframed: 42x29.7 cm / Framed: 52x39.7 cm
Vlatka Horvat, End in Sight (03), 2017Giclée print collage on Hahnemühle Photo Rag. Unframed: 42x29.7 cm / Framed: 52x39.7 cm
Vlatka Horvat, End in Sight (02), 2017Giclée print collage on Hahnemühle Photo Rag. Unframed: 42x29.7 cm / Framed: 52x39.7 cm
Vlatka Horvat, End in Sight (01), 2017Giclée print collage on Hahnemühle Photo Rag. Unframed: 42x29.7 cm / Framed: 52x39.7 cm
Vlatka Horvat (Čakovec, Croatia, 1974) works across a wide range of forms, from sculpture, installation, drawing, collage and photography to performance, video, writing and publishing. Her practice investigates the precarious relationship between bodies, objects, the built environment and nature by reimagining and redrawing the physical, social, psychological and environmental boundaries experienced in our everyday lives. She is particularly drawn to what she thinks of as ‘problematic’ or dysfunctional set of relations, whereby things like balance or stability become compromised, and where the habitual function of objects is playfully messed with.
In her work Horvat frequently enacts reversals and inversions of established spatial and social order. She is interested in how things occupy, negotiate and share space, and how gestures of organizing and reorganizing spatial relations also perform a certain reordering of social dynamics. Horvat’s works tend to have a speculative or propositional quality, and frequently deal with the possibility of transformation and change. Many of her projects are organized around a set of self-imposed restrictions, a rule-based framework of sorts within which her investigations take place. The artist stages a meeting between her own system of rules and the open-ended, playful, improvisatory activity that she pursues inside it.
Her upcoming project is By the Means at Hand for the Croatian Pavillion at the 60th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (opening 17 April, 2024).
Vlatka Horvat lives and works in London, where she moved after spending twenty years in the US. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include: Ebensperger, Berlin (with Tim Etchells), Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, PUBLICS, Helsinki (solo, alongside Maarit Mustonen), Renata Fabbri, Milan (with Tim Etchells), annex14, Zurich (with Simon Callery), Phoinix, Bratislava (2023); Galerija Nova, Zagreb, PEER, London (2022); GAEP Gallery, Bucharest (2020); Renata Fabbri, Milan (2017); Zak | Branicka Gallery, Berlin (2015 and 2011). She has realized projects and installations for Kunsthalle Wien, Zurcher Theater Spektakel, the Pavilion of Croatia at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, VOLT (Bergen), Bard Center for Curatorial Studies (NY), Bunkier Sztuki (Krakow), Marta Herford Museum (Herford), Kunsthalle Osnabrück, the 53rd October Salon (Belgrade), Stroom (The Hague), MoMA PS1 (NYC), MGLC and Galerija Skuc (both Ljubljana), Aichi Triennale (Nagoya) and the 11th Istanbul Biennale. Her performances have been commissioned by venues across Europe, North America and beyond. She teaches in the Fine Art department at Central Saint Martins / University of the Arts, London.
Vlatka Horvat (Čakovec, Croatia, 1974) works across a wide range of forms, from sculpture, installation, drawing, collage and photography to performance, video, writing and publishing. Her practice investigates the precarious relationship between bodies, objects, the built environment and nature by reimagining and redrawing the physical, social, psychological and environmental boundaries experienced in our everyday lives. She is particularly drawn to what she thinks of as ‘problematic’ or dysfunctional set of relations, whereby things like balance or stability become compromised, and where the habitual function of objects is playfully messed with.
In her work Horvat frequently enacts reversals and inversions of established spatial and social order. She is interested in how things occupy, negotiate and share space, and how gestures of organizing and reorganizing spatial relations also perform a certain reordering of social dynamics. Horvat’s works tend to have a speculative or propositional quality, and frequently deal with the possibility of transformation and change. Many of her projects are organized around a set of self-imposed restrictions, a rule-based framework of sorts within which her investigations take place. The artist stages a meeting between her own system of rules and the open-ended, playful, improvisatory activity that she pursues inside it.
Her upcoming project is By the Means at Hand for the Croatian Pavillion at the 60th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (opening 17 April, 2024).
Vlatka Horvat lives and works in London, where she moved after spending twenty years in the US. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include: Ebensperger, Berlin (with Tim Etchells), Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, PUBLICS, Helsinki (solo, alongside Maarit Mustonen), Renata Fabbri, Milan (with Tim Etchells), annex14, Zurich (with Simon Callery), Phoinix, Bratislava (2023); Galerija Nova, Zagreb, PEER, London (2022); GAEP Gallery, Bucharest (2020); Renata Fabbri, Milan (2017); Zak | Branicka Gallery, Berlin (2015 and 2011). She has realized projects and installations for Kunsthalle Wien, Zurcher Theater Spektakel, the Pavilion of Croatia at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, VOLT (Bergen), Bard Center for Curatorial Studies (NY), Bunkier Sztuki (Krakow), Marta Herford Museum (Herford), Kunsthalle Osnabrück, the 53rd October Salon (Belgrade), Stroom (The Hague), MoMA PS1 (NYC), MGLC and Galerija Skuc (both Ljubljana), Aichi Triennale (Nagoya) and the 11th Istanbul Biennale. Her performances have been commissioned by venues across Europe, North America and beyond. She teaches in the Fine Art department at Central Saint Martins / University of the Arts, London.
- Vlatka Horvat,
- Tim Etchells
- Vlatka Horvat
Pavillion of Croatia
60th International Art Exhibition
La Biennale di Venezia
April 20 – November 24, 2024
Curated by Antonia Majaca
Renata Fabbri is delighted to announce that the artist has been chosen to create a project for the Croatian pavilion at the Sixtieth Venice Biennale, to take place from April 20 to November 24, 2024.
- Vlatka Horvat,
- Tim Etchells,
- Sophie Ko
Artissima
November 2-5, 2023
Oval | Torino
Main Section
Hall Orange | Booth 12
- Vlatka Horvat
PEER Gallery, London, UK
February 4- April 2, 2022
