Wednesday, 8 April at 7 pm
On Wednesday, 8 April 2026 at 7 pm, the Forum Gallery (Teslina 16) and the Upper Floor Gallery (Preradovićeva 5), both part of the Cultural and Information Center, will open the exhibition A Land of Prohibitions. Through a dialogue between historical and contemporary works, the exhibition examines political pressures, prohibitions, and mechanisms of censorship in art, from the 1930s to the present day. It will remain on view until 1 May.
At its core is the work of the Zemlja Artists’ Association, whose members were banned between the two world wars for their critical depictions of social reality, poverty, and inequality. A key moment of repression occurred on 7 April 1935, when Krsto Hegedušić placed a padlock on the door of the Art Pavilion after the police banned the Association’s seventh exhibition. This symbolic gesture serves as a starting point for reflecting on contemporary forms of pressure, self-censorship, and institutional control over artistic production.
Curator Davorka Perić emphasizes that the works of the historical Zemlja artists enter into dialogue with contemporary authors who deal with similar themes: the collapse of social values, poverty, disciplining public space and perfidious forms of prohibition. The exhibition shows that art that exposes the downside of the system still provokes resistance today, just as it did ninety years ago.
In addition to works from historical collections and museums, contemporary artists whose works address self-censorship, fear and social conformity are also presented. Special emphasis is placed on works that problematize silence as a survival strategy in a society of surveillance, but also on artistic gestures that call for courage and public resistance, authorial comments on prohibitions and censorship throughout the socialist period, all the way to the recently prohibited or self-prohibited events in Croatian cities of Sinj, Benkovac, Velika Gorica and Split.
Participating artists, filmmakers, and musicians include: Neli Ružić, Gildo Bavčević, Boris Burić, Vlado Martek, Mladen Stilinović, Božena Končić Badurina, Vlasta Delimar, Marko Paunović, Krsto Hegedušić, Marko Ristić, Ljubomir Micić aka Dr. Rasinov, New Collectivism, Marijan Detoni, Fedor Vaić, Kamilo Tompa, Branka Hegedušić, Željko Hegedušić, Kamilo Ružička, Ernest Tomašević, Vilim Svečnjak, Oton Postružnik, Vanja Radauš, Sara Renar, Antun Mezdjić, Petar Franjić, Edo Kovačević, Obrad Gluščević, Lazar Stojanović, Marko Babac, Vojislav Kokan Rakonjac, Živojin Pavlović, Želimir Žilnik, Bahrudin 'Bato' Čengić, Rajko Grlić, Vlado Kristl and Srđan Karanović.
The programme also includes film screenings by authors who faced censorship in their own contexts due to their critical approach to society. The selection features works in the tradition of the “Black Wave” and experimental cinema, which, like the work of the Zemlja group, rejected idealised representations of reality.
An accompanying programme will run throughout April, including screenings at Surogatkino KIC, a panel discussion A Geography of Prohibitions in the KIC hall. On the opening night at 9 pm a performance by Sara Renar, Gentle Words in the Land of Prohibition, will take place.
Through both historical and contemporary examples, A Land of Prohibitions traces the shift from overt bans to more subtle forms of control, highlighting how the most insidious form of censorship is not imposed from the outside, but internalised and accepted as normal.
