With the exhibition Retrospective, opened at the Gallery of Queen Katarina Kosača as part of the art program of Mostar Spring 2025 – 27th Days of Matica Hrvatska Mostar, academic sculptor Vesna Vuga Sušac marked 25 years of artistic work. The celebration was double because the artist also celebrated her birthday on April 25, the day the exhibition opened on the occasion of a significant artistic jubilee.
The exhibition was opened by the president of Matica Hrvatska Mostar, academician Ljerka Ostojić. – It is not a small amount of 25 years to be as one with art and create, exhibit, keep your creative nerve constantly active, think about new cycles and new artistic achievements. Vesna is here tonight, as you have already heard, selflessly offering us a quarter of a century of her artistic life through eight different cycles, including her master's and doctoral theses. At the exhibition, we can see 107 works created in the period from the end of the Academy in 2000 until this year, 2025.
What I want to emphasize is that the Retrospective tonight also becomes part of the history of a very rich and very successful art program throughout all 27 years of the Mostar Spring. We at Matica Hrvatska in Mostar are extremely happy about this, especially because in recent years we have been particularly emphasizing cycles of presenting local artists, who form a very strong art scene in Herzegovina – said Academician Ostojić, opening the exhibition, who also congratulated the author on her birthday – both the real one and the artistic one.
– A period of a quarter of a century for the artist is a time of work, research, questioning and decision-making through the prism of sculptural activity, a grounded and articulated artistic production. Through her eight cycles, the author speaks about complex phenomena, simplicity and diversity of approach, in the spirit of excellence, dialoguing with artistic movements, while creating her own recognizable style. In her work, she relies on the images and sounds of the space in which she lives, literary models and human relationships that have become the impulse for her defined and noble creativity – emphasized, among others, the curator of the exhibition Dinko Baković.
– The exhibition mainly presents relief paintings, along with 10 sculptures and one installation #musthava, which speak of different reflections, about which mag. hist. art. Dinko Baković wrote the preface to the exhibition catalog entitled "Golden Vuga". The exhibition is accompanied by that catalog in printed form with reproductions of 113 works and texts by 14 different authors. In addition to the printed catalog, visitors can also download a digital catalog via QR code. Many of my friends and colleagues participated in the preparation and realization of this jubilee exhibition, with a great synergy that resulted in this exhibition. I am happy that many of them selflessly gave their part in the realization of, I can freely say, a great project – said Vesna Vuga Sušac on the occasion of marking a quarter of a century of artistic work.
In addition to Academician Ostojić, the author and curator of the exhibition, the head of the Queen Katarina Kosača Gallery, Dalibor Nikolić, also addressed the visitors. The evening was musically enriched by Josipa Bošnjak, who performed on the piano Franz Schubert's Three Piano Pieces: No. 2 Allegreto, E flat major and Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata K. 455, G major.
The exhibition remains open until May 9th.
The event, organized by Matica Hrvatska Mostar, was also supported by sponsors: the City of Mostar, HT Eronet, Queen Katarina Kosača Gallery, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Educational Sciences of SUM, ATACO, ALFA, Musa Polyclinic, Biokomerc, Slagalica, Dugatehna and Andrija Stojića Family Cellar.
Photo: Matica hrvatska Mostar
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