Galerija Nova’s premises at Teslina 7 have been returned to a private owner based on a decision on restitution, and the new owner recently requested we vacate the property. The unpleasant news that we must hand over our space to a new owner found us in the midst of running an extensive exhibition and discursive program Nova 2.0, marking our twenty years at the helm of Nova Gallery. The last exhibition at our current address, Viva La Transicion! is on view until June 6, 2023, while its second chapter has been postponed.

WHW carries on with its many programs, and our remaining exhibitions planned for this year will be held at other venues. Croatian Association of Visual Artists – HDLU will host our exhibition Planet, People, Care – It Spells Degrowth! and the Ribnjak Youth Centre will host the WHW Academy with its art and exhibition program. The new edition of NOVACI, an exhibition program for young curators, will go on view at POGON – the Zagreb Centre for Independent Culture and Youth. We wish to thank our colleagues, organizations and cultural centres for stepping in for us.

We continue to communicate with the City Office for Culture, Intercity and International Cooperation and Civil Society and receive support to realize our programs in this period of transition, in cooperation with various cultural centres. We agreed that the major historical and symbolic importance of Nova Gallery obliges us to ensure its continued operation.

While it is now forced to leave its premises after thirty-one years, Nova Gallery had already changed its address on three occasions. Launched in 1975 as part of the Centre for Cultural Activities of the Socialist Youth Association at Teslina 1, from 1979 it operated at Mihanovićeva 28. The Centre was later reorganized into a trading company, AGM, and the Gallery was still part of it in 1992 when it moved to Teslina 7. Nova Gallery was founded and run for many years by artists Ljerka Šibenik and Mladen Galić who curated a cutting-edge program at the time: showing works by artists of diverse orientations, giving a chance to young protagonists of “new artistic practice”, and striking up dialogues with a wider field of art so as to include comic book and film exhibitions in their program. As the curatorial collective What, How and for Whom / WHW, we have been running the gallery since 2003.

Over the past twenty years, we have designed our programs in tune with the needs and dynamics of the scene, and not least – in relation to changes in the socio-political context, being guided by the principal questions: what, how and for whom? And so we shall continue; we will go on curating new works of art, forging dialogues of different practices, developing socially relevant curatorial concepts, a strong discursive program, and internationalism in all our activities. Collaboration has always been at the root of our programs at Nova Gallery, and so it remains a basis of our future activities.

We hope that this crisis situation helps set up a permanent space for Nova Gallery and WHW, where with our extensive experience we can realize programs relevant not only to the art scene but also to the wider public sphere.