The Croatian Association of Visual Artists – Split is launching a new annual event
Program 210 – Venetian Biennale in Split.
Program 210 is intended to host recent representatives of the Republic of Croatia at the Venice Biennale, with possible collaborations with other international artists who have had notable appearances at the exhibition. The idea is to curate and reconsider existing or new productions by artists (whether they have participated in previous Biennales or the most recent one) in a new context, all with the aim of further developing the national art scene and sensibility for contemporary art. The curator of the project is Božo Kesić, and the project is being implemented in collaboration with Museum of the City of Split.
The first guest in the program is multidisciplinary artist Vlatka Horvat, Last year's Croatian representative at the 60th Venice Biennale, whose project was included in numerous lists of the best pavilions in Venice.
Grand opening of Vlatka Horvat's exhibition titled “Mijene” will be held on Saturday, November 8, 2025, at 12:00 PM, you western part of Diocletian's Palace cellars.Vlatka Horvat will present three works designed for the ambiance of Diocletian's Palace cellars. –Still water, SplitiGet out.
Admission to the opening is free, and the exhibition can be viewed until December 21, 2025, daily from 9 AM to 5 PM.
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A PROGRAM 210
The 210 nautical miles between Venice and Split are marked by historical contacts between the two cities. The number in the name of the inaugural Program 210 refers precisely to the approximate length of the maritime route along which commercial and other connections took place between Venice and Split in the past, and today this program is writing the latest cultural layer onto the palimpsest of the history of relations between the largest Dalmatian city and the former Serenissima.
One of the main ideas of this program is that exhibitors at the current edition of the Venice Biennale will present themselves in Split after the event concludes. Program 210 will take place in the historic space of Diocletian's Palace cellars, which has been a center of diverse artistic life for decades and leads from the coast northward to one of the most monumental stages for performing arts of ancient origin, Split's Peristyle.
Program 210 is intended to host recent representatives of the Republic of Croatia at the Venice Biennale, with possible collaborations with other international artists who have had notable appearances at the exhibition. The idea is to curate and view either existing or new productions by artists (whether they have participated in previous Biennales or the most recent one) in a new context, all with the aim of further developing the national art scene and sensibility for contemporary art.
Boyzo Kesich
MIJENE… AND BALANCE
”Vlatka Horvat's solo exhibition titled "Mijene" (Changes) is the most recent entry in the multi-layered discourse of Diocletian's Cellars (substructure) in Split (hereinafter: Cellars). The current art exhibition is not solely an adaptation to the challenges of this monumental space, but also the creation of new semantic codes based on dialogue with selected historically conditioned facts that continuously ensure the Cellars' status as a significant place in local and national cultural, social, and economic life. Therefore, the exhibition "Mijene" is an articulation of individual artistic thought within a specific material and symbolic framework, but also the creation of a new context in relation to the civilizational work commonly referred to as the Cellars.
On one hand, new artistic production in a space like Podrum must be a reaction to existing spatial frameworks and institutional conventions. In doing so, the visual language of contemporary art (the realm of the image) inevitably confronts the epistemological and memory formations (the realm of „language“) that have accumulated for centuries in the originally ancient building complex, creating a shared field. On the other hand, the terms this essay invokes (fluctuations, but balance as part of the same conceptual framework) are shaped not only „from within,“ within the previously outlined field, but are also introduced into this system „from without“ by Horvat, as she has already considered the conceptual and symbolic potentials of similar terms through previous artistic achievements.”
(from the foreword by Božo Kesić)
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Vlatka Horvat She is an artist who uses various media in her work – from sculpture and installation to collage, video, photography, performance, and publishing. She has held numerous solo exhibitions and projects in an international context at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (MSU), Kunsthalle Wien, PUBLICS Helsinki, MARTa Herford Museum, Bergen Kunsthall, MoMA PS1, The Kitchen (NYC), and in many other museums, galleries, and festivals (Aichi Triennale, Istanbul Biennial, Venice Architecture Biennale). Last year, she represented Croatia at the 60th Venice Biennale of Art with a project that was featured on numerous lists of the best pavilions in international publications. Her performances have been presented across Europe, North America, and beyond. Her works are included in many public and private collections. After twenty years in America, where she moved as a high school student, she now lives in London.
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Rad HULU-a podržan je od strane Ministry of Culture and Media, Kultura Nova Foundation, Split Stadium, Tourist boards of the city of Split and Split-Dalmatia County .
