Location: Gallery Kvart (Put Trstenika 1)

Time: 17 April 2026 – 24 April 2026

At Galerija Kvart in Trstenik (Put Trstenika 1), on Friday (17 April) at 8 p.m., the exhibition Uje FKJOUC by sculptor Tomislav Hršak will open. The exhibition is created in collaboration with Domagoj Šiljeg and Glorija Lizde.

Curator Ana Čukušić writes the following about the exhibition: “The foreword to the exhibition before you is an anecdote about the imaginative compromises of the domestic art market, which at the very least deserved an exhibition presentation. After the exhibition tour of the sculpture ‘Form that Went Red’ by Tomislav Hršak, it caught the attention of collector Domagoj Šiljeg. The situation that followed is familiar to many. On one side, there is openness and a desire to support professional artistic production; on the other, a budget that, although well-intentioned and conscious, still has its limits. Because culture and art are funded from the surplus money left after reality has been settled, yet even then interest is not great, as art shares that remaining ‘scrap’ with other luxuries. Therefore, the interested buyer’s proposal was both attractive and understandable – to exchange wood for wood, an olive tree in an olive grove near Metković for a wooden sculpture. A transaction that requires no bank, but trust; an exchange that confirms that the domestic art market still operates in a currency that fluctuates in the realm of symbolic and spiritual capital. However, despite everything, it also confirms that art still finds ways to circulate, this time through olive groves.

Tomislav did what any consistent author would do – he transformed it into a new artwork. The inevitable continuation of this already unconventional story is the first artistic uje, premiered in our gallery. A uje that carries the stamp of the sculpture from which it indirectly emerged, but retains all its characteristics: monumentality, spatiality, and institutional framing. Moreover, by receiving a plaque with the initials of its new owner, the olive tree—one of many in the Šiljeg family grove—becomes a concept. Through a simple administrative act, almost bureaucratic, or rather a handwritten ‘contract’ drafted by the buyer, a piece of nature moves into the realm of ideas, and ownership becomes an artistic category. The multimedia artist Glorija Lizde also joins the realization of the new work. Her practice deals with themes of heritage and family memory; by photographing Tomislav’s olive tree within the grove that itself is passed from father to son, she records an example of dedicated paternal work, whereby physical labor is once again transformed into art.

The boundary between artwork, process, and ownership is not always clear and fixed, but open to negotiation, exchange, and occasional improvisation. In this zone of negotiation, where redefinitions take place, art does not lose its value; on the contrary, it demonstrates an extraordinary ability to adapt and, most importantly, the ability to reinvent itself.”