THE CROATIAN PAVILION BY DUBRAVKA LOŠIĆ AT THE 61ST VENICE BIENNALE
At the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Croatia is represented by Dubravka Lošić, a Croatian contemporary artist who has been exhibiting regularly in her country and abroad since 1983. Her practice, developed over more than forty years, combines painting, sculpture and installation, transforming traditional and industrial materials — wool, textiles, iron, bronze — into works rich in meaning and emotional tension. At Palazzo Zorzi, Lošić presents Compelled by Fright and Beauty, a site-specific installation in which the creative cycles produced throughout her career interact with one another and with the exhibition space, giving rise to a unique ecosystem where each element finds its own balance while remaining open to transformation.
Born in Dubrovnik in 1964 and trained at the School of Applied Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb under the painter Ferdinand Kulmer, Lošić has developed an artistic practice that intertwines personal experience, local sensibilities, and family memory. “Throughout my career, I’ve always started with painting, only to let it evolve into something else. I work with painting as a medium to which I add wool, threads and fabric scraps. I expand the very concept of painting, imbuing it with meaning and inner tension” says the artist, outlining the core of her creative process.
At the Biennale, Lošić presents works from seven major series: Libertas Bells (2014–2026), Tondo (2020–2025), Rosary (1987–2026), Imago Anima (2012–2013), Sharks (1986–2026), Rains Paris (2018) and Alba Albula (2019). Each series corresponds to a temporal span that does not define a precise chronology: some works emerge immediately from an initial intuition, others require a longer period to mature, and all remain open to change. “I exhibit them as completed works, indicating the year of completion, yet none of these cycles is ever truly finished. They transform in scale, form and material. Over time, they connect and disconnect from one another,” Lošić notes.
In Rains Paris and Alba Albula, presented as rows of black and white bodies filled with coloured wool, the artist captures moments of intimacy that occasionally resurface in the form of threads, small fragments of life suspended between matter and colour.
In Tondo, everything that must remain visible only to her is hidden at the center, while the sculpted circular edges protect the vulnerability of the work’s heart. Imago Anima offers portraits of the souls of the people depicted, painted layer by layer until only the essential outline remains: “As I reflect on what will be shown and what will remain hidden, I also wonder what will be said and what will remain unspoken,” the artist confides. Sharks hold portraits created in the 1980s, vessels of psyche and memory that cannot speak, while Libertas Bells are silent bells, a symbol of silent resistance against places rejecting their own people and against a world that mistakes aggression for eloquence. The Rosary cycle, meditative and transformative, fragments and dismantles painting into roses, becoming an act of contemplation on fragility and transformation.
The exhibition at Palazzo Zorzi opens in the courtyard, where Libertas Bells, Rosary and Tondo interact with iron, bronze sculptures and textile objects, engaging with one another and with the architecture. Moving on to the main floor (Piano Nobile), in the Sala Codussi, the series Alba Albula, Rains Paris, Imago Anima, Rosary and Sharks harmonize with Venetian splendor, combining painting, fabric and form in a theatrical and orchestrated effect characteristic of both Venice and Dubrovnik, the artist’s hometown. Lošić conceives, produces and exhibits her works as systems open to development, formal expansion, and experimentation, giving rise to installations that evolve from one context to another.
The artist’s language blends modernist, postmodern and neo-avant-garde paradigms with local and traditional references, creating a space for improvisation in which the emotional, visual and sensory dimensions become accessible to the viewer. “My work begins with a rigorous compositional structure and proceeds intuitively. As the exhibition title, Compelled by Fright and Beauty, suggests, I choose what to retain and protect and what to allow to emerge to the surface,” Lošić emphasizes, revealing the tension between vulnerability and resilience that runs through the entire body of work.
The exhibition – curated by Branko Franceschi, Director of the National Museum of Modern Art in Zagreb, and commissioned by the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media – will be held at the Palazzo Zorzi (Salizada Zorzi, Castello 4930, Venice | opening: Friday, May 8, 2026, 5 pm). Visiting hours: from May to September, 11 am – 7 pm; from October to November, 10 am – 6 pm. Closing: Mondays, except on special occasions. For further information, please visit www.dubravkalosic.com, for press contacts and international enquiries, please contact Cristina Gatti Press & P.R. press@cristinagatti.it, for general enquiries, please use studio@dubravkalosic.com.
