Artissima 2026

Kristian Kožul
1573

For the 2026 edition of Artissima, TROTOAR presents a monographic booth dedicated to Croatian artist Kristian Kožul (b. 1975), titled “1573”. The site-specific presentation brings together new works conceived especially for the fair, comprising objects and works on paper, all engaging with the failed peasant uprising of 1573 in parts of northern Croatia and Slovenia. The booth is conceived as an exaggerated, immersive environment that employs naivety and dark humor as strategies of disarmament, staging a surreal field of distorted power symbols and cruel, caricatural figures.

“If we don’t rise, we shall never be resurrected.” In the Fog, Miroslav Krleža

In the year 1573, the gargantuan greed of the tyrannical rulers, their lackeys’ fondness for inhuman brutality, and the lack of God within the Church… sparked the doomed rebellion. The unshackled violence of the first victories of the peasant army was soon overshadowed by the systematic extermination of the population in the rebel provinces. Two-thirds of the people were put to death, but not at once. Forests of St. Catherine’s wheels carrying broken bodies sprang to the heavens, conforming with the medieval folklore of suffering. Limbs were broken and bodies were nailed to the wood, and families were hanged together from trees… To teach a lesson to those who would dare oppose the tyranny. The violence and the barbarity of the event was often used as a significant part of the national/state-building myth by the political systems in power. During the socialist period in Yugoslavia, it was portrayed as a proto-socialist event and an inherent outcry for social equality and workers’ rights. Later on, after Croatia gained independence, it was depicted as the beginning of the long struggle towards independence and the national affirmation. In both cases, strong emphasis was made on circumstances of monumental social inequality, paralyzing injustice and cruelty imparted on the defeated serf rebels. Fundaments of national victimhood were reinforced time and time again. The depictions of bloodshed, both historical and literary, have a surreal carnivalesque quality to it. Both sides attain equality at a certain point, not through the cathartic social ritual that would temporarily abolish social differences and perhaps allow the knowledge of the other, but through the onset of unrestrained violence. Through the asphyxiation of reason, the opponents were transformed into fantastical monsters, urging evermore savagery. The violence suffered, overwhelming cruelty endured and the fundamental victimhood are deeply woven into the fabric of the local national identity (along with other historical eruptions of violence and suffering that are readily available throughout the local folklore). Its pathos reverberates constantly through the contemporary self of the people, justifying the intolerance of the other. The social polarity and fervent convictions of that particular time allowed the opposing factions to see each other as monsters, inhuman transgressors, and were obliged to act against each other without mercy or remorse. A perverse celebration of one’s monstrosity shared with others through the obscenity of common savagery… Victims claim the right to revenge that guarantees future reincarnations of the slaughter. As the darkest fantasies of the perverse few grow into reality, it seems horrifyingly contemporary.

More information soon.