Bogdan Borčić & Karel Zelenko: Dialogue

This year will see the 20th exhibition of Bogdan Borčić’s Graphic Cabinet, which will also mark the 100th anniversary of Bogdan Borčić’s birth (1926–2014). On this occasion, Borčić’s graphic works will be placed in dialogue with the graphics of Karel Zelenko (b. 1925), one of the key representatives of Slovenian graphic art in the second half of the 20th century, who celebrated his 100th birthday in 2025.

Bogdan Borčić (1926–2014) and Karel Zelenko (b. 1925) share many biographical parallels. Both attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana in the 1940s and belonged to the first post-war generation to train under the tutelage of leading figures, including Božidar Jakac and Gabrijel Stupica, who exerted a decisive influence on both artists.

Their paths became more closely intertwined in the late 1950s, when Borčić returned from Paris and began using the printing press in Zelenko’s studio in Kamnik, where Zelenko was producing ceramics for the Keramika factory. In the 1960s, they appeared as companions of the Ljubljana School of Graphic Arts, although neither perceived himself as its representative. Zelenko never identified with the technical perfection attributed to the school’s framework; instead, he advocated for simplicity in drawing and the immediacy of leaving a mark on the printing plate. This understanding of printmaking reveals his rebellious spirit, clearly reflected in the independent visual language of his black-and-white, filigree etchings. In contrast to Zelenko’s stylistic homogeneity, Borčić continually transformed his practice, opening up new visual fields from decade to decade.

While Borčić was primarily interested in the technical and visual aspects of printmaking, Zelenko demonstrated a more pronounced engagement with social themes, which he conveyed in an emphatically narrative manner. Borčić described printmaking as a plan, whereas Zelenko likened it to poetry.

Despite differences in their procedural and conceptual approaches, parallels can still be found in their oeuvres, particularly in the recurring presence of the figure. In Borčić’s work, figures appear in his early woodcuts depicting village and fishing scenes, as well as in works recalling his internment in Dachau. At the end of the 1960s, teh figure briefly returned in the refined Pop Art compositions. Thereafter, the role of the “figure” in his prints was assumed by a shell, which he explored with deliberate persistence until it was ultimately reduced to a perforation. Karel Zelenko, by contrast, remained committed to figuration throughout his career. His prints are dominated by realism imbued with bitter satire and almost morbid irony: a woman in a wheelchair is selling lottery tickets, a “nature lover” is admiring his hunting trophies, Icarus is entangled in chaotic electrical wiring. His worlds are oversaturated with objects, populated by acrobats and circus performers, and enveloped in a haze of melancholy.

The clown, as a motif linking the two artists, appears in Borčić’s early works, while in Zelenko’s oeuvre it remains a constant to this day. As an archetype, it opens up multiple layers of interpretation — from the figure of the entertainer and social outcast to a symbol of duality and a complex personification of the absurdity of interwar and post-war existence. This figure resonates throughout the second half of the twentieth century and continues to retain its tragicomic relevance today.

After a long period of abstraction, the object re-entered Bogdan Borčić’s oeuvre in the 2000s, appearing as a solitary item set within an expansive white field — first as a chair and a table, later as a tool. The artist recounts having once been drawn to a pair of long pliers in one of Zelenko’s prints, which he subsequently depicted in the series Simple Things. In this body of work, he began exploring the relationship between the vastness of the blank sheet and a small colour print. Similarly, within the framework of this dialogue, Borčić’s objects appear as though they had been taken from Zelenko’s walls, tables, junkyards, or carnival chaos. They stand in deliberate contrast to Zelenko’s horror vacui, which reflects a world drowning in material excess and folly.

Curator: Deja Bečaj

Photo:
Bogdan Borčić, Circus I, 1957, GBJ Archive
Karel Zelenko, Acrobatic Clown, 1973, photo: Nina Zelenko

Bogdan Borčić’s Graphic Cabinet holds 1,072 graphic works and 371 drawings and sketches by the artist. Each year, it presents a selected segment of his extensive oeuvre, and from 2022 onwards, the exhibitions will be held in dialogue with works by related artists. The exhibition Bogdan Borčić & Karel Zelenko: In Dialogue will be accompanied by an extended discursive program with lectures and a round table discussion, intended to provide an in-depth reflection on graphic art and Borčić’s oeuvre.