Artists: Manon Avram & Pierre Audouard, Pavlica Bajsić Brazzoduro & Dino Brazzoduro, Nisrine Boukhari, Lana Čmajčanin, Tomislav Čeranić, Aleksandar Garbin, Ibro Hasanović, Siniša Labrović, Lukas Marxt & Jakub Vrba, Nika Oblak & Primož Novak, Alicja Rogalska, Sara Salamon & Hrvoje Spudić, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec

MMSU collections: Milenko D. Gjurić, Branko Kovačević, Andrija Maurović

Cultural-historical documents are borrowed from the Rijeka City Museum and the Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral

Curated by Ksenija Orelj and Sabina Salamon

The exhibition thematize escape in a wide range of its possibilities, forms and limits. We encounter existential, physical, imaginary and massive acts of escape as the attempts of obstructing the control of escape. We observe forms of escape as potential ways of survival, where elusion and circumvention of rules and procedures are completely normal. Finally, we depict escape as an ephemeral practice based on movement, which tends to go against the Law that mainly exists only as a written word and as such remains open to whimsical interpretations and unjust implementations.

In the diapason of meanings carried by word “escape” – escape of thoughts, escape from reality, escape from danger and threat – we interpret escape primarily as an act of crossing the standard borders and flouting the norms, measures and regulations. With works from the collections of Rijeka’s museums (the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Rijeka City Museum and the Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral) as well as the works of selected and invited artists, we take a look at the trails and records of escape: from myths and Biblical references to actual events such as masses of refugees on their way to the European Union.

This exhibition intertwines artistic, cultural, historical and social perspectives, viewing the above stated topic as a mechanism of survival, evident particularly in periods of crisis, such as nowadays, with masses on the move without safe passage and shelter. While the need to escape often carries a negative connotation, in this exhibition we take interest in escape as a proactive and self-sustaining act manifesting itself in two ways at least – as a reaction to the lack of tolerance toward the current state of affairs, but also as a privilege that enables us to carry out an act of fleeing in the first place. Escape flows in the stream of antagonisms, being the punishment and the treat at the same time.

MMSU

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