Slaven Tolj
Craquelure. Pavo and me
curated by Daniele Capra

Collezioni Comunali d’Arte
Palazzo d’Accursio, Piazza Maggiore 6, Bologna

Exhibition
26 January – 5 March 2023

Performance
Saturday 4 February 2023 7 pm
Sunday 5 February 2023 11 am

Closing Event / Guided Tour
Sunday 5 March 2023 17 pm

On the occasion of ART CITY Bologna 2023, the Collezioni Comunali d’Arte (Municipal Art Collection) is happy to host Craquelure. Pavo and me, solo show by Slaven Tolj. The exhibition, curated by Daniele Capra, consists of some fifteen sculptural and documentary artworks and the performance Bologna, February 2023, especially created for the Bologna museum, which will take place on Saturday 4 February 4 at 7 pm and Sunday 5 February at 11 am. The project is Tolj's first solo exhibition at an Italian public museum.
Slaven Tolj's solo exhibition Craquelure. Pavo and me consists of some fifteen sculptural and documentary artworks and the performance Bologna, February 2023, conceived specifically for the Municipal Collection at Palazzo d’Accursio. The project is a condensed retrospective in which the exhibited works highlight Toly’s ability to positionhimself as an interstitial element between inner, interpersonal and political dynamics,
thus developing an intimate narrative unfolded on a double track of personal life and expressive research. The exhibition is dedicated to photographer Pavo Urban, a friend of the artist who died in the war in Dubrovnik on 6 December 1991. Urban’s photographs
from the Rosarium series are also on display, documenting a performance Tolj made in
the Croatian city.
Body art and conceptual art have always been at the core of Slaven Tolj’s work, from his
beginning in the late 1980s to the most recent works, which bear witness to some
vicissitudes following a stroke that undermined his linguistic abilities. His research, for that matter, is fueled by a persistent interaction with human and professional events experienced firsthand. Tolj’s visual experience builds on the experience of pain and all torments that tear existence apart, leaving it marked with deep scratches. As an artist, Tolj is an attentive being to the highest degree. He is not only capable of perceiving and
recording, like a seismograph, the imperceptible variations of the human being,understood as a sort of complex telluric ecosystem, but he is also able to process this data, without taking any pathetic or fictional drift.

Tolj's life and research have been marked by the historical events that led to the tragic breakup of Yugoslavia: from fratricidal war to the deaths of loved ones, and the deep political and social change that followed. In his artistic practice, as well as in his work as
a curator and director of cultural institutions, the artist has acutely recorded the pervasive way in which consumerism and anthropological change penetrated society in the aftermath of the war. He also managed to render the drastic transformation of his city, Dubrovnik, due to the impact of mass tourism.

Similarly, even strictly personal issues such as the transformation of his body acted as a fundamental lens for the artist to observe reality. His personal history, his body damaged by a stroke, the rehabilitation exercises to regain use of language, but also the difficulty in conveying his thoughts verbally: all this became the humus that generated new works. Yet, there is no exhibitionism whatsoever, as for him the body is an unrivaled
instrument of investigation and detection, capable of probing, and then providing a
poetic image of all the thunderstorms, the glimpses of light and the winds that stir the clouds of our lives. Tolj is straightforward and direct, showing his own intimate truth without compromise, even when he reveals deep and human fragility.

Promoted by
Galerie Michaela Stock, Vienna

Supported by
Kontakt Collection, Vienna

In collaboration with
Art radionica Lazareti, Dubrovnik
Settore Musei Civici Bologna
Musei Civici d’Arte Antica

Part of
ART CITY Bologna

Opening hours
Tuesday and Thursday 2 pm – 7 pm
Wednesday and Friday 10 am – 7 pm
Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays
10 am – 6.30 pm
Monday Closed
(admission closes 30 minutes before
closing time)