Exhibition Dorothy Cross: Kinship / Srodstvo in Archaeological Museum in Zagreb

At the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, the Art Pavilion in Zagreb presents a selection of works by contemporary Irish artist Dorothy Cross, created over the past three decades, in the exhibition Dorothy Cross: Kinship.
Curator: Leonida Kovač.

The Art Pavilion in Zagreb presents a selection of works by contemporary Irish artist Dorothy Cross created over the past three decades curated by Leonida Kovač.

The exhibition is held at the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, where, located between the Egyptian and Prehistoric collections, it further draws connections between our space and time, distant histories and geographies.

The backbone of the exhibition Kinship / Srodstvo is the artist’s recently completed project Kinship – Home , her multi-year effort to return the mummified body of an ancient Egyptian, which was owned by the University of Cork, home to Cairo. By returning the body of the deceased to where looters and antiquities dealers desecrated his grave, Dorothy Cross points to the history of colonialism woven into the cultural history of the West, and at the same time pays tribute to the thousands of refugees for whom the Mediterranean Sea is now a tomb. Dorothy Cross regularly emphasizes that she understands art as seeing things as they have not yet been seen. Such an understanding of art necessarily implies the deconstruction of dominant epistemological paradigms, or the decolonization of knowledge. Her works are articulated as thinking images that destabilize established patterns, including the binary opposition between inanimate matter and living human beings. The sculptures, installations, photographs, films, and operatic performances that Dorothy Cross has directed in specific settings, relate deep geological time to the brief moment of human presence on this planet. In her work, a journey through cultural history requires a perception of multidimensional relationships, a genealogical understanding that necessarily presupposes a departure from the tradition of anthropocentrism. Her works can also be understood as a statement about the substantial and inseparable imbuing of the human with the non-human, about the encounter of species in an affective event beyond spatial and temporal coordinates. They echo the theme of the “oceanic feeling” – the feeling of boundlessness in being one with the entirety of the external world.

Dorothy Cross was born on 5 February 1956 in Cork, Ireland. From her first solo exhibition held in 1988 at the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin to the present day, her distinctive sculptures and installations – formed through unexpected combinations of materials – as well as her site-specific operatic performances and large-scale projects, such as the emblematic Ghost Ship (1999), have drawn significant attention. Semantic complexity is a constant presence in her bronze and marble sculptures, as well as in her photographs, films, and video installations. In 1993, she represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale. Her works are part of numerous public and private collections, including the Tate Gallery, London; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; The Arnolfini Trust, Bristol; Art Pace Foundation, San Antonio, TX; Château de Vullierens, Geneva; Château La Coste, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade; Crawford Art Gallery, Cork; Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane; Henry Art Gallery – University of Washington, Seattle; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb.

Dorothy Cross has received numerous awards and honours, including honorary doctorates from Goldsmiths College – University of London, University College Cork, and the National University of Ireland. She lives and works in Connemara, on Ireland’s west coast.

Curatorial collaboration: Irena Bekić (Art Pavilion in Zagreb)

Curatorial coordination: Miljenka Galić (Archaeological Museum in Zagreb)

Exhibition design: Leonida Kovač

Technical set-up: Damir Martinec (Kunsttrans), Ivan Troha, Luka Ritt, Robert Vazdar (Archaeological Museum in Zagreb), Robert Jandrić (Art Pavilion in Zagreb)

Graphic design: Rafaela Dražić

Producer: Sanja Balentović

Public relations: Priredba

Exhibition partner: Archaeological Museum in Zagreb

Organization and production: Art Pavilion in Zagreb

Acknowledgements: Wendy Dorman-Smith / Ambassador of Ireland to Croatia, Frith Street Gallery London, Kerlin Gallery Dublin, IMMA Dublin

Represented by Kerlin Gallery, Dublin and Frith Street Gallery, London