Dino Zrnec - Nothing new under the sun

Nothing new under the sun

Have you ever seen a real life murderous act? I have never witnessed one myself. What has always impressed me in movies about killers is their calmness directly after committing a murder. It is exactly after the shooting that you don't have to attract attention. 

Dino Zrnec is a killer. He meditates, acts and afterwards leaves calmly in cold blood. He is a ruthless and intimate artist. 

For our first collaboration in September 2016, the artist produced a series of paintings articulated through micro-fractures of the canvas. Instead of making loud and redundant gestures Zrnec chooses silence. Micro-spatialism, a term I coined at the time describing very thin cracks in the canvases, micro-fractures with an ambiguous character. It communicates that the only possible way is a result somewhere between what the artist proposes and what happens by accident. 

In this extreme present Dino is still sitting on the riverbank, he meditates, he watches over the water flow, and acts with constancy and awareness. We do not know whether the body will first appear along the river and this is not really the point to be discussed. Instead the main point is that it is very difficult to remain true to oneself, to follow the primordial impulse that animates one's artistic research whilst at the same time to look around, to inhale and to be permeable. I won't dwell much on this exhibition. This is certainly a body of works in which we see two souls, an Apollonian spirit and, if you like, a Dionysian one. We view a clean, balanced gesture on the one hand, and on the other, an accretion that embodies the character of a patient accumulation of thoughts. 
Zrnec knows how to stop a moment before the declared and obvious bourgeois mockery. His approach is a concealed humour with often sinister overtones. You can see this in certain moments of his deep, disillusioned, austere and simultaneously thick painting, crass in a certain sense, but never truly voluptuous and never self-referential. 
Zrnec's painting is continuously characterised by a discreet, silent elegance, aimed at seducing in the etymological sense, se ducere, leading to oneself. It is a seduction that invites reflection and observation, not love. “Come to me but at the same time stay away from me.” 

Our dialogue begins in 2016, when we were moved by a somewhat naive and expectant unawareness. Then time passed at supersonic speed. We find ourselves now, five years later, discussing a spirit that is disillusioned with greater awareness and in a much more proactive manner than the subject that animated us initially. During one of our final conversations, preparatory to this inauguration, we found ourselves smiling and realising that everything passes yet everything returns. “You have to let it go” states Zrnec.

I am unsure if Dino has absorbed anything from me over the years, I don't wonder. 
As far as I am concerned, I have learned from him to not insist too much, “to let it go” and to progress calmly and slowly absent from the scene of the crime. Nothing new under the sun.

Vincenzo Della Corte

Dino Zrnec (*1983 in Zagreb; lives and works in Vienna, Austria and Zagreb, Croatia) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Zagreb and Prague.

Selected solo exhibitions:
2020
Ride into the Sun, 3rd Industrial Art Biennial, Historical and Maritime Museum of Istria, curated by Branka Bencic (HRV)
The Unremarkableness of Disobedient Desire, Lucie Drdova gallery, curated by Laura Amann, Prague (CZE)
2019
zrenez zernez zernetz, TMNT, Technical Museum Nikola Tesla, CIMO, Zagreb (HRV)
2018
Dino Zrnec & Renée Levi, VIN VIN at Ruyter, Vienna (AT)
2017
Dino Zrnec with Christoph Meier, Francuski paviljon, Zagreb (HRV)
statisti, Institute for Contemporary Art, Zagreb (HRV)
2016
Between works, MSU gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (HRV) 
paintings, VIN VIN, Vienna (AT) 
2014
Ensure for size, Kunsthaus Graz project space, Graz (AT) 
2013
until tomorrow, Annex gallery, Pula (HRV) 
Freie Sammlung Wien, Ve.sch, Vienna (AT) 
Blind spot, Karas gallery, Zagreb (HRV)
2012
Ve.sch, Dienstag Abend, Vienna (AT) 
2010
Projection room, Gallery SC, Zagreb (HRV) 

Selected group exhibitions: 
2020
The Unremarkableness of Disobedient Desire, curated by Laura Amann at Lucie Drdova Gallery, Prague (CZE)
2019
loose ends, Renata Fabbri gallery, curated by Branka Benčić, Milan (IT)
2018
Vier Meter hohes Display für Malerei, Ve.sch Kunstverein, Kaltenleutgeben, Vienna (AT) 
50/68, slike utopije, Faculty of Humanities and Social Science, Zagreb (HRV)
COCO, NEEMA,GAGA - Dino Zrnec, Soren Aagaard, Ludwig Kittinger, House of Flora, Dubrovnik (HRV)
2017
Temporary encounters, Apoteka, Vodnjan (HRV)
brake it down, Parallel, Vienna (AT)
Death in the afternoon, KS Room, Riegersburg (AT)
Air, Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna (AT)
tihi krik, Mmsu Rijeka, galerija Poodrom, Belgrade (SRB)
2016.
Dino Zrnec with Christoph Meier, curated by Vincenzo Della Corte, galerija Kazamat, Osijek (HRV)
56. Annale, curated by Ursula Krinzinger and Branka Benčić, Porec (HRV)
tbc, Rigo gallery, Porec (HRV)
2015
Dino Zrnec and Nick Oberthaler, closed circuit, Apoteka project space, Vodnjan (HRV)
2014
notes on undoing, curated by Branka Benčić, Garis & Hahn, New York (USA)
mundus vadit retro, Kibla centar, Maribor (SVN)
2013
Freie Sammlung Wien collection, Ve.sch, Vienna (AT)
wtorkowy wieczor, Galeria Miejska, Gdansk (PL)
'mi opet tu’, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Bochum (DE)
2012
Drawing Quote, Pigna project space, Rome (IT)
2011
Second reality, Künstlerhaus Vienna, Vienna (AT)
Polis, post industrial city, Karlo Roje, Pula (HRV)
Drawing Outline, Kiev (UKR)
2010
Vienna biennale, Künstlerhaus Passagegalerie, Vienna (AT)
Youth salon, HDLU, Mestrovic pavilion, Zagreb (HRV)
Zagreb salon, HDLU, Mestrovic pavilion, Zagreb (HRV)
2009
Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome (IT)
Manifest zaborava, Kvaternikov trg, Zagreb (HRV)
Start Point, Galerie Klatovy, Klenova (CZE) 
Interzone, City, Gallery Galženica, Velika Gorica (HRV)
everybody goes a different way to see the same thing, Semperdepot, Vienna (AT)