David Maljkovic: A Retrospective by Appointment

Publishing Year: 2016
Publisher: WHW and Mousse Publishing
Text by What, How & for Whom/WHW
Binding: Softcover
Pages: 208
Dimensions: 16 x 22 cm
Language: English and Croatian

ISBN 9788867492503

David Maljković’s A Retrospective by Appointment (2015) defied expectations, problematizing the genre of the retrospective. Taking place across three different exhibition spaces in Zagreb—the artist’s studio, Gallery Nova, and the Gallery of Croatian Designers’ Association—it avoided the usual approach of showing the development of the artist’s “style” over time, and instead treated the exhibits in a nonhierarchical way. Maljković’s key concerns and methods—individual and collective relationships, the complexities of time, collagist approaches, self-referentiality and referencing the work of other artists, the use of earlier works and exhibition displays as material, art’s autonomy, and the nature of the gaze—were all carefully choreographed in installations that treated major works, early student sketches, and film props equally. Unexpected, poetic, and sometimes humorous situations created the cumulative effect of throwing visitors off balance. The book follows the experimental format of the exhibition, and is conceived as an ironic deconstruction of retrospective format, as well as a critical intervention into the institutional landscape in Zagreb.