The Sky Is Turning – This Is Not Another Exhibition About Surrealism

The exhibition “The Sky Is Turning – This Is Not Yet Another Exhibition on Surrealism” brings together around thirty works, ranging from miniature reliefs and drawings to previously unexhibited installations from the museum collection, along with five invited artists. The exhibition opens on March 19 at 7 p.m.

Featured artists: Lovro Artuković, Andrej Beštak & Anja Leko, Ante Brkan, Tomislav Ćurković, Dušan Džamonja, Vera Fischer, Alen Floričić, Jasna Friščić, Tomo Gerić, Slavko Grčko, Željko Hegedušić, Nina Ivančić, Olja Ivanjicki, Nenad Jakešević, Nives Kavurić-Kurtović, Ivan Kinkela, Daniel Kovač, Radovan Kunić, Emanuela Lekić, Siniša Lenac, Vlado Martek, Kata Mijatović, Paula Muhr, Milan Pavić, Dragana Sapanjoš, Josip Seissel, Melita Sorola Staničić, Mladen Stilinović, Sanja Švrljuga Milić, Mirjana Vodopija, Silvio Vujičić.

Entering the exhibition The Sky Is Turning feels like taking a step into your own thoughts at the moment when they refuse to be obedient. Occupying the entire gallery space of the Museum, it features about thirty works from its collection – from miniature reliefs and drawings to as previously unexhibited installations – along with the works of five invited artists. Traditional and experimental techniques are combined here with unconventional and unstable materials: salt, hair, leather, sand… Traditional strongholds lose their relevance, and what we usually sweep under the rug is brought to the foreground: contradictory impulses, fears, and desires that both drive and unsettle us. The belief in the economic growth, rational subject and language as a tool of clarity, has been called into question, as evidenced by our time of accelerating crises.

The Sky Is Turning focuses on the unconscious as an inexhaustible topic of artistic research, and the presented works, created from the 1940s to the present day, share some structural components of the Surrealism. However, this is not another exhibition about the Surrealism. Fragmentation of the body and identity, repetition of motifs and associative and enigmatic images, are shaped through diverse artistic aesthetics. Therefore, the gap between what we want and what we do, along with the ambivalence of our internal states – not their neutrality – become essential components of the exhibition. In this process, the unconscious is also seen as part of institutional orders and power aspirations, where fear of the other can be turned into a means of competition and manipulation. How these states are visualized in art and how we engage our own unconscious are some of the questions posed by the exhibition. We are taking our visitors on a journey through the unconscious contents of artwork – from repressed thoughts, memories, urges, and dreams to internal conflicts that appear as symbols, metaphors, distortions, emptiness or sudden affective explosions.

At the intersection of art history and psychoanalytic and feminist theories, the exhibition unfolds through three spatial and thematic sections: The abyss of the unconscious; We are not the masters in our own house; and Desire is someone else’s – the drama of identity. It is filled with opulent, yet inaccessible objects of desire, intricate psychic landscapes, and moments of emotional rebellion. The inner confusion, and the collision of desire with the order of language and law, occupy an essential place here. Particular attention is paid to female pleasures, which have long been interpreted as hysteria. In the society that requires constant self-regulation and efficiency from the individual, invoking the unconscious becomes an act of resistance. Instead of the idea of a stable and complete subject, The Sky Is Turning invites us to acknowledge our inner vulnerability and – at least for a moment – to re-enchant the world.

Curators: Kristina Barišić, Ksenija Orelj; expert associate: Ivo Matulić, psychologist, psychotherapist, group analyst

Design: Nikola Križanac

Support: City of Rijeka, County of Primorje-Gorski Kotar, Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia