Galerija Nova Gallery in Zagreb
Donji grad · Contemporary programme
Editorial Profile
Galerija Nova is a city-owned, non-profit gallery in Zagreb founded in 1975 by artists and curators Ljerka Šibenik and Mladen Galić, and long associated with Donji grad as a site for experimental contemporary art and critical public culture. Since 2003, its program has been shaped by the curatorial collective What, How & for Whom / WHW, giving the gallery a distinctly research-driven and politically attentive profile within contemporary art in Zagreb. Rather than functioning as a conventional commercial venue, it has developed as a platform for exhibitions, public talks, publications, artistic education, and collective inquiry, often connecting artistic practice with questions of labor, public space, memory, social transition, and forms of self-organization.
Its program has included artists and projects such as Vlatka Horvat’s Your Country Doesn’t Exist, Mangelos: Manifestos, Theses, Projects and Notes, Mario Mu’s Sites of Encounter, and On Necessary Work, with Kader Attia, Fokus Grupa, Adelita Husni-Bey, and Hana Miletić. These references indicate a direction oriented toward conceptual, archival, installation-based, performative, and socially engaged practices rather than medium-specific presentation. Within galleries in Zagreb, Galerija Nova occupies a particular position: it links the legacy of alternative and neo-avant-garde spaces in the city with a broader international curatorial network developed by WHW through exhibitions, biennial projects, publications, and educational programs. Even after leaving its long-term Teslina 7 premises, its continued activity through partner venues reinforces its role as a flexible, discursive infrastructure for Zagreb’s contemporary art scene.
Selected Artists
Vlatka Horvat
Croatian
Mladen Stilinović
Croatian
Sanja Iveković
Croatian
Igor Grubić
Croatian
Hana Miletić
Croatian
Kader Attia
French-Algerian
Marina Naprushkina
Belarusian
Adelita Husni-Bey
Italian-Libyan
Selected Exhibitions
Your Country Doesn’t Exist
Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Etcétera, Vlatka Horvat
Mangelos. Manifestos, Theses, Projects and Notes
Mangelos
In Mourning and In Rage
Marwa Arsanios, selma banich, Marijana Hameršak, Women to Women collective, CAConrad, Vera Dajht-Kralj, Lav Diaz, Etcétera / Progressive International Workshop, Tina Gverović, Suzanne Lacy, Leslie Labowitz, Mladen Stilinović
Mladen Stilinović, Red – Pink: Reflections on Colour
Mladen Stilinović
Mario Mu: Sites of Encounter
Mario Mu
Vlatka Horvat, Marina Naprushkina, Artistic Ecologies Every Day
Vlatka Horvat, Marina Naprushkina
NOVAci: At the Tip of the Tongue
Žarko Aleksić, Neža Knez, Mila Panić, Petar Vranjković
Viva La Transicion!
Sanja Iveković, Fokus Grupa, Gal Kirn, Rajkamal Kahlon, David Maljković, Bojan Stojčić
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