Meet the artist at MMSU / Laura Barić presents her artistic research on martial arts

Laura Barić is coming to Rijeka for a two-week artist-in-residence stay, after winning the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s award at the 36th Youth Salon for her work “Time Out”.

On Thursday, March 21st, at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Laura Barić presents an artistic research she has been conducting over the past year through theory and practice. Laura has practiced various martial arts and sports, read literature on these topics and attended a series of seminars, camps and martial arts competitions, exploring the relationship between the body, repetition, competitiveness and discipline.

In Rijeka, she will continue to explore the concepts of art and martial arts, dedicating her efforts to documenting and visually presenting her research.

“By delving into the layered meanings of workout, I examine the embodiment of knowledge through repetitive processes, the notion of ‘deliberate practice’ and art that involves individual expression. As part of my research, I went to Thailand where I documented the relationship between Western and Eastern approaches to these concepts. I study fighter motivations, workout structures, differences between sport and skills and the fine line between pain and fun.”

Laura Barić (1993) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, at the Department of Animated Film and New Media, in 2016. After completing her studies, in addition to art projects, she started working as a digital designer, which influenced the aesthetics of her art. In 2019, she completed the WHW Academy’s international program. She has had four solo exhibitions so far (2022 “Blue skies with toppings”, VN Gallery, Zagreb; 2021, GMK “TIME OUT”; 2020 Artoratorij “Ready, steady, grow”; 2017 Galerija Šira, “P is an insecure R”) and participated in a series of group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. In 2019 she was an artist-in-residence at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, and the same year she won the first prize for her work “Two ways of slicing the onion” at the Grisia Youth Festival in Rovinj. In 2021, she won the MMSU award for her work “TIME-OUT” presented at the Youth Salon. Barić explores the body and physicality, both in physical and in virtual spheres. She usually creates in the form of multimedia installations that she builds from various objects, videos, photographs and texts, where she examines various cultural phenomena, including ideas of success, structure, consumerism and spontaneity. She often uses elements of the absurd and visuals that flirt with pop culture and commercial aesthetics. Barić lives and works in Zagreb.