Dušan Tršar

A Retrospective

In cooperation with Božidar Jakac Art Museum Kostanjevica na Krki

28 September – 26 November 2017

Opening: 28 September 2017, at 8 p.m.

Moderna galerija, Cankarjeva 15

Curators: Goran Milovanović, Kristina Tina Simončič

Organization, coordination of transfer and selection of works: Marko Jenko

Exhibition design: Marko Jenko

Photography: Tomaž Grdin

Partial transfer of Dušan Tršar's retrospective, prepared by the Božidar Jakac Art Museum in Kostanjevica na Krki. The retrospective will also travel to the Gallery of Murska Sobota.

Dušan Tršar's retrospective exhibition, which was prepared by the the Božidar Jakac Art Museum in Kostanjevica na Krki on the occasion of the artist's life jubilee, presented the most important works from his oeuvre, which has been created over more than sixty years. Moderna galerija offers a selection of his works from the period between 1966 and 1984.

This period starts with the works in welded iron, in which the artist shifts from realistic manner to the creation of more and more schematic forms of the human body. In the second half of the 1960s the artist creates silhouettes mad of wooden lamellas, wire and iron rods, which are bent at the upper end and thus preserve the memory of the human form. The 1970s are then marked by sculptures made of fluorescent Plexiglass, which the artist illuminated by neon light. The design of his objects and the cold industrial character of the chosen materials are enriched by the use of color, which becomes an autonomous element. In this period Tršar joined a group of young Slovenian artists called “Neoconstructivists”. The group originally constisted of Dušan Tršar, Dragica Čadež, Drago Hrvacki and Tone Lapajne and was later joined by Vinko Tušek and Slavko Tihec. The group shared the methodological approaches related to the construction of spatial structures and constructivist and minimalist design principles, as well as their fondness for modern materials. Since the second half of the 1970s, the sculptures were becoming monochromatic, thus emphasizing the transparency of the works and permitting the viewer to look through them. The final stage of this period is represented by works, in which the Plexiglass frame is filled with glazed baked clay or bronze forms that gradually outweigh the Plexiglass.

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Dušan Tršar was born on January 18, 1937. He spent his childhood years in Planina near Postojna. Between 1952 and 1955 he attended the Blacksmiths’ School in Kropa. He graduated in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. In 1966 he specialized in sculpture under the professor Boris Kalin. In 1979 he started lecturing sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, where he also held the position of dean between 1989 and 1991. In 1991 he became full professor and he continued working as a lecturer in sculpture until his retirement in 2006.

To date, Dušan Tršar has held over fifty solo and numerous group exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad. He has received several major awards for his achievements in art, including the Zlata ptica (the Golden Bird, 1970), the Prešeren Foundation Award (1978) and the Golden Plaque of the University of Ljubljana (2003). In 2012 he became an honorary citizen of Kostanjevica na Krki. He lives and works in Ljubljana and Kostanjevica na Krki.

The exhibition is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.