Nikola Vrljić: The Siege of Oz

The exhibition of the artist Nikola Vrljić at former monastery church of GBJ entitled The Siege of Oz refers to his perception of current zeitgeist, and therefore he merges notions of reality and fiction in a highly ambivalent way. His sculptures represent a distinctive modern grotesque, that relates to various situations in the artist’s private life and in wider public sphere. In a way, this exhibition appears to be his intimate reckoning with the society of spectacle that he addresses in a distinctly (self)ironic way, because he is well aware that he (and nobody else) can escape it.

In his artistic practice Vrljić makes his massive and voluminous sculptures out of common everyday materials. His objects are designed with polystyrene sheets that are stacked up to the desired height, and then shaped by cutting them into the desired form. His works represent some kind of archetypical images and forms of modern world, such as cars, aircraft, portraits and skulls that metaphorically relate to symbolism of death, cult of youth or in general to materially-driven dominant culture. Even though on the first glance it may seem that his sculptures are semantically only loosely related, the audience can interpret them through various contexts and symbols that demonstrate the cacophony of globally networked societies. His pieces commonly appear monumental but at the same time they also seem fragile and unstable due to chosen material and specific process of work. Precisely because of this contrasting relation, the artist creates tension between his pieces and reacts to a space that they inhabit. Also, with this show Vrljić synchronises his works with the specific exhibition venue of the former monastery church of GBJ.

Nikola Vrljić (1980) is an artist who graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 2007. Since 2003, he has exhibited in number of solo and group exhibitions, the most important of which are Citizens at Galerija Poola, Pula (2021), The Gathering at Galerija Antuna Augustinčića, Klanjec (2019) and Runaways at Galerija Josip Račić, Zagreb (2018). He has been awarded several times in competitions for public sculptures, and has also executed ten public monuments. He lives and works in Zagreb.

Nikola Vrljić, The Siege of Oz, 2024. Photo: Jaka Babnik, GBJ archive.