Trotoar is pleased to present Nirgendwo, a group exhibition featuring works by Mila Panić, Igor Ruf, Marko Tadić, and TARWUK (Bruno Pogačnik Tremow and Ivana Vukšić), curated by Martina Marić Rodrigues. The exhibition is on view from February 14 to March 15, 2025.
The layers of the world graft themselves onto one another. Present and past futures grow and entwine with future presents and pasts. All of this takes place in the midst of permeations and transformations; in the branching out of fine lines and the empty spaces between them. These “empty spaces”, “in-betweens” as W.G. Sebald dubs them, are gaps in space and rifts in time, places where our existential nausea is collected. Confronted with a reality that twists into itself, we struggle to make sense of the world and are at once faced with its deeply indeterminable nature. How can one live in a time that at once shapes us and transcends us? How can we understand who we are, and our presence in a world that seems ambivalent to our existence?
At the exhibition Nirgendwo (meaning “nowhere” in German), four micro-stories are allowed to develop. Mila Panić, Igor Ruf, Marko Tadić, and TARWUK exhibit works that exist on the “thresholds” between that which is and that which might be – neither fully rooted, nor fully displaced – but rather immersed in constant change.
Marko Tadić is an artist that searches, sifts through, stores – fills up the reservoirs of memory – a physical and associational archive that is the foundation of his artistic practice. In the work Souvenirs he likewise relies on an inherited inventory of the everyday. He begins with discarded memorabilia, old wooden plates featuring panoramas of various tourist destinations. Once the spoils of travellers’ collecting rituals, these small artefacts reflecting personal history are items that are immensely trivial and at the same time deeply meaningful as nostalgic reminders of the (good) old days. Pushed out of one life cycle, they retreat to the reservoirs of memory. From here, Tadić extracts them and uses them to create a bricolage of new stories. Through subtle or radical interventions, Tadić “outmanoeuvres” the clichéd touristic vedute. Familiar places are scattered, obscured, or mutated, and a general air of melancholy creeps in. Though they are imaginary places, life’s traumatic core remains. In Tadić’s work entropy is neither the aim nor the endpoint, but rather a part of the process. The depositories and archives that he explores return as places where one can find pleasure in melancholy.
Following the narratives in Igor Ruf’s installations is challenging and intentionally divergent. Events elude fast and clear identification, which frequently creates a sense of discomfort in viewers. Through a refined technique designed to confuse, the foundation of his process breaks through clearly: rooting around in his own memories the duality of surfacing from the past and diving back into it once again. In Hairdresser for the Hill, Ruf exposes himself on a deeply personal level: through the hum of a song that he performs himself, through a variety of small personal items arranged in a cabinet de curiosités, through a comic he wrote, entitled Smelly Hill and the Pine Trees, in which the hair-cutting game is played out – a game he knows all too well from his childhood. Hairdresser Salon’’s atmosphere has a scenographic power and is organised according to the principle of the antique shop; every item arranged within the work contributes its own history and meaning. The accumulation of various elements, memories, and experiences creates a sense of an unusual, alternative space; a potential reality that opens up like a collection of meanings, rather than a linear sequence of events.
TARWUK (Bruno Pogačnik Tremow and Ivana Vukšić) function as a symbiotic artistic entity – an “organism” that suspends individual identities for the sake of the freedom of collective creative expression. The act of creation exists solely as a collaborative process, a continuous and intuitive mutual exchange. The painting E was conceived as a part of the installation Vernacular River Holds 6 Bodies Down, a combination of pictures, photographs, sculptures, props, and sounds, was arranged like a film set – an approach to creating exhibitions that TARWUK has been developing impressively in their recent projects. The abstract landscape of E, with its orphic geometric sign, represents collective creation freed from predictability and a predetermined direction. Through an iterative approach – returning, adding to, reshaping – layers of materials and correspondences are created, while the image remains open, avoiding the clutches of fixed identification.
The most direct visualisation of the “in-betweens” is presented by Mila Panić in her recent works from the cycle Südost Paket (Southeast Package), which she has been developing since 2017. She channels the experience of living in the diaspora – at a temporal, spatial, and emotional “distance” – through an object: the bus tyre. A tyre that, as a capsule of a microcosmos, tumbles along the well-trod migrant route between Germany and Bosnia. Her multimedial works personify the voices of “small histories”, those that have remained on the margins of dominant narratives. They highlight the impossibility of establishing a unity between the personal and the collective, when actions and thoughts repeat until they lose their clarity and purpose, transforming into fear, anger, and existential paralysis. Her subtle installation at the Nirgendwo exhibition is also her most personal work from this cycle. Created using acrystal, as it turns the tyre leaves a trace in the dust, which spells out the words “Between Here and There”, an intimate poetization of her own uprooted identity. The tyre takes on the function of the white spectre of reality – present but shifting and impossible to catch, which is easily scattered, just like dust. (from the exhibition text by Martina Marić Rodrigues)
Exhibited works:
Mila Panić, Between Here and There… is 20 Hours Border Crossing, 2023, acrystal, aluminum, dust, 83 x 23 x 210 cm
TARWUK, E, 2018, mixed media on linen, 152 x 122 cm
Igor Ruf, Hairdresser for the Hill, 2016, mixed media installation, dimensions variable
Marko Tadić, Souvenirs, 2007, mixed media on wood, dimensions variable
About the artists:
Mila Panić (1991) is an artist and stand-up comedian born in Bosnia and based in Berlin. Her artistic work ranges from personal documentation to poetic visual and discursive elements through which she creates a cycle that interprets the various legacies of migration. She is the host of the podcast Broken English, which explores the politics of language and the question of how to live between two or more languages. She is also a co-founder of the collective and association Fully Funded Residencies.eV.
Recent solo exhibitions: Hurts So Good, Miroslav Kraljević Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia (2024); Madness, eastcontemporary, Milan, Italy (2024); Good Teeth Bite Strong, Künstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg, Germany (2023); Tante aus Deutschland, Centrum Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2020); Burning Field, Reflektor Gallery, Užice, Serbia (2018); Südost Paket, Vetrine 01, Berlin, Germany (2018); Burning Field, Helmut Gallery, Leipzig, Germany (2018.)
Recent group exhibitions:, Modra, Ljubičasta, Zelena, Žuta, Crvena, Sarajevo, BiH, (2024); Radical Playgrounds – Stand-up Comedy Performance ‘Hurts So Good’ An Art Course, Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany (2024); Conflictual Distance, the Immigrant Artist Biennial 2023, efa Project Space, New York, USA (2023); All Images Will Disappear, One Day, Autostrada Biennale, Prizren, Kosovo / OSTRALE Biennale (2023); Cleaving the Wind into Fragments, Montagehalle, HbK Braunschweig, Germany (2023).Ž
TARWUK (Bruno Pogačnik Tremow and Ivana Vukšić) were born in 1981 in Zagreb and Dubrovnik and currently live and work in New York, USA. By combining different artistic languages and painting styles to create subtle historical connections, TARWUK employs numerous visible and invisible references to craft intricate micro-worlds—dynamic spaces of transhistorical collaboration and exchange. In addition to their paintings, they create open, scenographic sculptures that can be perceived as carnival-like mise-en-scènes. They describe these works as “architectural models of organic growth,” where life itself is observed as a performative act on a cosmic stage.
They have exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions such as Good Night, Ernst Toller! at the Matthew Brown Gallery, New York, USA (2024); I Planted a Bone in the Winter Garden at White Cube, London, UK (2023); Бољи живоt at Halle für Steiermark, Graz, Austria (2023); Conceived for the Stage at White Cube, Paris, France (2023); Ante mare et terras at Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2021); and 20170621_141332 (2) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Osijek, Croatia (2017).
Their works have been part of numerous group exhibitions, including Manic Pixie Nightmare Drawings, Adler Beatty, New York, USA (2024); Être Méditerranée, MO.CO Montpellier Contemporain, France (2024); Au-delà – Rituels pour un nouveau monde, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, France (2023); BETWEENNESS: Technoculture and the Baltics, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia (2023); Recent Sculpture, Matthew Brown Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (2022); Door to the Atmosphere, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, USA (2022); Anarchy of the Imagination, Kerry Schuss, New York, USA (2021).
Marko Tadić (b. 1979, Croatia) is a visual artist working in the fields of drawing, collage, animation, and installation. His ideas are rooted in post-war utopian architecture and modernist urbanism, while the materials for his scenographic compositions come from old photographs found at flea markets, drawings of unbuilt cities, and spaces that once existed and now exist again only in his works. He incorporates science fiction into somewhat forgotten (or vanished) spaces, creating surreal scenes with narratives that could easily be real.
With the project Horizon of Expectations, in collaboration with artist Tina Gverović, he represented Croatia at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Recent solo exhibitions: The Kitchen, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia (2024); Heliopolis, Parco Arte Vivente, Turin, Italy (2024); Playing a Role, Gallery Kula, Split, Croatia (2024); The Aim, Filodrammatica, Rijeka, Croatia (2023); Temporary Form, Blok, Zagreb, Croatia (2022); Complicity in the Making (with Petra Feriancová); Jan Koniarek Gallery, Trnava, Slovakia (2021); Imagine a Pattern, Public Open University Zagreb (POUZ); Croatia (2020); The World as a Pavilion (with Vjenceslav Richter); Bozar, Brussels, Belgium (2019).
Selected group exhibitions: Horror Patriae, Steirischer Herbst, Neue Galerie, Graz, Austria (2024); Planet, People, Care—It Spells Degrowth!, HDLU, Zagreb, Croatia (2023); Don’t Dream Dreams, A Selection from the Art Collection Telekom and Two Commissioned Works, Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2023); Urban Text, Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris, France (2022); Draw, Gallery of Fine Arts, Split, Croatia (2022); EKO 8, International Triennial of Art and Environment / A Letter to the Future (2021); From Imagination to Animation: Six Decades of Zagreb Film, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia (2020); 2nd Industrial Art Biennale: On the Backs of Fallen Giants, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia (2018); Proposals, Dreams, and Utopias from Zagreb (with Tomislav Gotovac, Pero Dabac, David Maljković, Vlado Martek, Ivan Picelj, Marko Pogačnik, Zvonimir Radić, Vjenceslav Richter, Aleksandar Srnec; 2018); the 1st Anren Biennale, China (2017).
Igor Ruf (b. 1984, Croatia) through his objects, sculptures, installations, and performances, explores how space, atmosphere, and events can be shaped and interpreted, focusing on both the material and immaterial aspects of everyday life. His work examines the everyday, where surreal motifs and common objects often coexist, creating new and unexpected connections that invite reflection and interpretation. In his recent projects, he focuses on a self-reflective analysis of artistic production, questioning its meaning, context, and role in society and culture.
Recent solo exhibitions: Soft Matter, Studio 21, Split (2023);, Tikolo mikuze, MKC Amphitheater of the Youth Center, Split (2022); Acoustic Turbo Sonic Momentum, Gallery 90–60–90, Pogon Jedinstvo, Zagreb (2022); Pavić, Čabraja, Ruf, Kazamat Gallery, Osijek (2019); It Feels Good to Be Here, Art Workshop Lazareti, Dubrovnik (2019); It Feels Good to Be Here, Salon Galić, Split (2018); It Feels Good to Be Here, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2018),; Kondor, que pasa?, Greta Gallery, Zagreb (2018),; Hairdresser’s Salon for a Hill, Institute for Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2016).
Recent group exhibitions: I’m Laughing… LMHO, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia (2022); the 28th Slavonian Biennale, Cultural Center, Osijek, Croatia (2022); 57th Zagreb Salon: We Appeared as a Strategy of Eternity, Croatian Association of Artists (HDLU), Meštrović Pavilion, Zagreb, Croatia (2022); Ateliers Žitnjak in BiH, Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, BiH (2021); Kondor, que pasa?, Performance Art Festival, Knifer Gallery, Osijek, Croatia (2020); T-HT Award@MSU, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia (2019).
https://igorruf.com/
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