In the installation $before&after$<\/em>, Lara Ana Kulenovi\u0107<\/strong> explores the processes of (re)construction within contemporary rituals of self-care and the aestheticization of the body. The work\u2019s initial idea stems from an impulse to direct the production budget toward herself \u2013 not in the sense of experience, but self-representation. The artist embarks on an inquiry into the gaze that observes not only the body, but also how it is constructed, displayed, and evaluated through self-perception. Silicone casts of the face and nails, extensions made from shed hair, and fragments of used supplements and cosmetic products are organized in a \u201cbefore and after\u201d format, where the difference lies not in the material itself, but in its staging. Harsh, unflattering light produces the \u201cbefore\u201d effect, while softer, more flattering light suggests \u201cafter,\u201d as if the same object were passing through two optics, two regimes of looking. In this dramaturgy of perception, the gaze becomes active and produces the difference it wants to see, revealing how perception itself is the result of a carefully tuned gaze.<\/p>\n The installation examines how the gaze is shaped through the viewer\u2019s relation to (their own) reflection. The seriality of \u201cbefore and after\u201d and the lighting conditions steer the gaze, revealing the mechanisms of the wellness and beauty industry \u2013 retouching, image-crafting, and perceptual correction \u2013 showing that the feeling of change arises more from the mode of looking than from any actual effect. Hair, nails, and silicone \u2013 materials at once intimate and artificial \u2013 become mediators of perception and surfaces for projection, in constant dialogue with the viewer.<\/p>\n In the video installation krmelj, \u0161ljokica, piksel<\/em> (crust, glitter, pixel<\/em>), nominis<\/strong> continues to explore light, dispersion, reflection, and fluidity. As a direct continuation of the eponymous performance, the artist transitions from the body in space to a two-dimensional image in which she herself becomes a cluster of pixels and a product of light. For nominis, light not only reveals form, but transforms it through the act of looking. In the video projection, the artist discloses her gaze through flashes of light with which she looks for and inscribes meanings into the materials that surround her and of which she is made. Such transfigured materials make up the drag ritual \u2013 not only in performance, but in the very process of construction and transformation.<\/p>\n The video is accompanied by an audio track in which nominis reads her own texts, prompting us to tease apart our view on drag and the body that performs it. The transformation of materials and the physical properties of light produce mirages, glitches, and illusions that are fleeting and elusive, while the ritual magic of drag is inseparable from the material, politicized, and gendered body. The uneasy, self-voyeuristic gaze that nominis lends to viewers reveals a face thick with makeup, crusty eyes, a corset biting into the skin, a razor cut, and a trickle of blood.<\/p>\n The artist also lip-syncs to her own voice, reading a text she authored, thereby further divorcing the notions of authorship and identity from the idea of the original. She is constructed and transformed through bodily, visual, and sound technologies, and through the gaze that fixes on neither the original nor the outcome. The result of this transformation is a kind of radical drag: an ongoing experiment, the repetition of ritual, and the search for meaning.<\/p>\n Following her earlier investigations into human impact on the natural environment and the constraints of natural givens such as the physical properties of materials and manifest forms of matter, Lucija Ostrogovi\u0107<\/strong> in r<\/em>azbit \u0107u ju nje\u017eno<\/em> (I\u2019ll break her gently<\/em>) enters an interior space organized around a massive, irregular rock hidden behind a door and a curtain. The owner of this dwelling, whose everyday life we loosely follow, lives in constant adaptation to the rock, devising fascinating ways to at least partially restrain and tame it, and even to harness the potential of its form for simple, everyday needs.<\/p>\n Interweaving photographs and text, the work reconstructs these spatial relations in the gallery context \u2013 partly literally, and partly in the mind of the viewer. Continually seeking a narrative thread, the viewer also immerses herself in relations between soft and hard, smooth and rough, liquid and solid, cold and warm, and wet and dry. Training the gaze anthropomorphizes the rock, which is initially read as merely a bizarre impediment to the organization of domestic space. This play with ways of seeing and understanding things, especially the position of people in relation to given natural elements, rests as much on observing with the eye as on a particular narrative perspective and linguistic choices.<\/p>\n In all three exhibited works, the gaze is continually calibrated \u2013 by light, material, space, or the viewer\u2019s intention. The artists show how meaning is constantly shifting and produced by the very act of looking, which fills the space of change through ceaseless tuning.<\/p>\n The exhibition Tuning the Gaze<\/em> is the result of the collaboration of three artist-curator pairs: Lara Ana Kulenovi\u0107 and Iva Juri\u0107, nominis and Toni Zadravec, Lucija Ostrogovi\u0107 and Lucija Fura\u010d.<\/p>\n Lara Ana Kulenovi\u0107<\/strong> (Zagreb, 2000) is a multimedia artist living and working in Zagreb. Her practice relies on expressing personal emotional experiences through their physical manifestation in objects and installations. The materials she uses are closely tied to each work\u2019s concept, if not integral to it. She has had three solo shows and has participated in several group exhibitions in Croatia.<\/p>\n nominis<\/strong> is completing a graduate program in New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. In 2024, she participated in the WHW Akademija. Her work spans 3D animation, new media, visual art, writing, and performance. Within her practice, she develops a drag alter ego \u201cnominis\u201d and explores its materialization across objects and digital space through video, performance, installation, and drag. She has exhibited in Zagreb, Vienna, Ljubljana, and Split.<\/p>\n Lucija Ostrogovi\u0107<\/strong> (Vrbnik, 1996) combines visual art and anthropology, focusing on their points of overlap and contact. Her methodological and research process is based on an ethnographic approach to everyday life. Through her works, she examines perceptions and relationships among landscape, space, and community using mapping and subtle spatial interventions.<\/p>\n Iva Juri\u0107<\/strong> (Zagreb, 1989) has a background in language: she works as a translator and editor, and sees her curatorial practice as an extension of her work as a translator \u2013 an act of mediation that articulates, conveys, and opens artistic ideas to new meanings. Over the past two years, she has written introductory texts for several exhibitions by emerging artists. Together with \u017deljko Beljan, she co-authored the artist\u2019s book Kao pravi futbaleri (GMK, 2025).<\/p>\n Lucija Fura\u010d<\/strong> (Zagreb, 1996) holds a degree in art history and comparative literature. She works in criticism and investigative journalism in the fields of the visual arts, literature, and culture more broadly, as well as in publishing and marketing. She curates film programs in Croatia dedicated to emerging filmmakers from the South Caucasus, with a regional focus that also includes Southeast and Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n Toni Zadravec<\/strong> (\u010cakovec, 1993) holds a degree in art history and English language and literature. He works in the field of language and occasionally as a freelance illustrator. During his studies, as part of the Art History Students\u2019 Club, he was part of the curatorial collective that organized the group exhibition Crno kroz prizmu at the Oris House of Architecture.<\/p>\n The exhibition Tuning the Gaze<\/em> is the result of NOVAci<\/strong>, a project developed in collaboration between WHW and Pogon \u2013 the Zagreb Center for Independent Culture and Youth. The program is based on an open call and is being carried out for the fifth time this year. It is designed to provide early-career curators with the infrastructural, organizational, and mentoring support to realize their first solo curatorial projects. NOVAci<\/strong> functions as a support platform for developing knowledge in the field of contemporary art, with a focus on practical experience in curatorial practice \u2013 something that is largely absent from formal studies. As part of the project, curators Ana Kova\u010di\u0107<\/strong> and Lea Vene<\/strong> mentored three curators over several months: from developing the concept and meeting with artists to selecting works, designing the exhibition, and reporting on the project.<\/p>\n The program is supported by: Sponsor: The gaze is an elastic concept. In everyday communication, it serves to identify spatial relations, other people\u2019s facial expressions, weather conditions, or anything else discernible to the eye. In film and, more broadly, new media theory, it conveys the attention of a subject informed by a specific identity. The gaze is read from a static […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5079,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[925],"tags":[44,86,568,642,865],"class_list":["post-5070","dogadjanja","type-dogadjanja","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-izlozbe","tag-ana-kovacic","tag-lea-vene","tag-novaci","tag-pogon","tag-pogon-zagrebacki-centar-za-nezavisnu-kulturu-i-mlade"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.whw.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Lara-Kulenovic.jpg\")
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\nCity of Zagreb \u2013 City Office for Culture and Civil Society
\nMinistry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia
\nKultura Nova Foundation<\/p>\n
\nTikve\u0161
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.whw.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/TCD-logo_bijela-pozadina-1.png\"){kind=logo}
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