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Zdenko Bužek

About the artist

Photo: Miodrag Pažin Cobra

Short biography notes

Zdenko Bužek was born 1957 in Helsinki, Finland. 1984 1984. graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia. From 1981: solo and group exhibitions in the country and abroad (Italy, Germany, Macedonia, Holland, Sweden, Turkey, Western Australia, Czech Republic, Austria); member of the multimedia group "Udarna grupa Poskok" (Delta Force Horned Viper) from ex-Yugoslavia and art group "Circle" from Skopje.

Short prose writer. Belongs to the Croatian minimal prose generation of the eighties; edited nine books. Translated from English to Croatian language more than 60 books of traditional spiritual literature.

Others about the artist

Tonko Maroević
"Bužek's nomad passing through mutually opposed acquisitions of modernism has coverage in both biography and geography of his formation. Few like him in his (not long) memories connects east and west, north and south. What is more important, however, is that his narrative technology and strategy are extremely syncretic and synthetic, associatively jumpy and paradoxically sharpened. Entering the painting with cultural baggage and with the obligations of imagination, it is no wonder that aseptic and neutral level of good craft or skilful elaboration does not satisfy him.” (Excerpt from the text for the exhibition in the Studio of gallery Karas, Zagreb, Starčevićev trg 6/II 26.09.-05.10.1988.)
Damir Grubić
“What Bužek wants is to create a new classic syntax by means of the narrative symbols he recognizes within the sphere of the visual information coming from the mass media. Words, abstract and figurative symbols, all serve a new visual order. The order which would like to reflect the spirit of our times. And it is related to the context of 20th century artistic styles. Using as his starting point the classic icons of popular culture, the established megastars as symbols of our times, cartoon-like sequences of little pictures as well as abstract art signs, Bužek pays tribute to the new era levelling high and popular cultures..”
(Excerpt from the text of the catalogue for the exhibition of paintings Posthistoric cycle in the Saloon of the Gallery Karas, Zagreb, 14.05.-31.05.1992.)
Enes Quien
“In a series of lyrical-abstract expressionist paintings, an authentic gestual energy is projected and discharged. Bužek follows Kandinsky's style, and by doing so he explores the dictation of an inner imperative, of spiritual impulses which result in colouristic forms, splotches and lines, that is, in all formal elements delivered from nature and shaped in spirit. Sometimes he insists on the automatism of action painting like Jackson Pollock, in order to understand the process of working on a painting, and the primeval urge to be literally physical in the act of painting. By combining Kandinsky's lyrical abstraction and Pollock's physical painting, Bužek creates his own amalgam which works impeccably as an attractive colouristic structure.”
(Excerpt from the text of the catalogue for the exhibition of paintings and collages Thinking postmodernism in the exhibiting space of Tax administration, Zagreb, 27.01.-14.03.2005.)
Vanja Babić
“Zdenko Bužek during his perennial artistic creativity has used extremely wide spectrum of most diverse disciplines and expressions, that we can without exaggeration consider him a kind of a media nomad. Namely, he painted in an abstract and figurative manner using different painting techniques, he used to reach for the digitally processed photography, neither were procedures close to conceptualism, land-art, even happening strange to him. To all of that, of course, should be added his by no means negligible literary work.”
(Excerpt from the text for the exhibition of paintings in Gallery Matrix Croatia, Zagreb, 12.-23.09.2008.)
Miloš Đurđević
“If we take montage in the sense of extended procedure, some handy method, as a common denominator of Bužek’s artistic and textual works, and that parallel is self-evident, when reading that artifact creation system soon we will, by the inertia of the presented material itself, find ourselves in the area of analysis of accumulated or combined meanings… It is so thanks to the common procedure that in pop-ethno-urban (applied) artistic works, which dominate in the earlier phase, enables unusual communication with the works that are laid in the foundations of modern arts or modern sensibility, where in any case it is not possible to overlook the work of the author himself and his personal preferences. Beams of meaning sparks could then illuminate, how things are, always-new circuits and in that way point us for a moment to certain artistic and wider cultural processes whose immanent flow and multidirectorial impact in that works are placed as basically inexhaustible and unstoppable.” (Fragment of the text Textual replicas of Zdenko Bužek, from the catalogue of the exhibition of books Selected works, Gallery Miroslav Kraljević, Zagreb 2003.)

2002
The Conversation with visitors, interactive performance for The Second Day of Croatian Performance, caffe bar Sermage, Varaždin
Overdone bean, interactive performance, KSET, Zagreb

2001
Planting a tree, performance, Gluscic hill near Samobor
Davor Krelja, interactive performance, Gallery Miroslav Kraljevic, Zagreb
Personal contacts, interactive performance, project Capital and Gender by Suzana Milevska, Museum of the City of Skopje, Skopje

2000
Planting a tree, performance, Matrix Croatica Square, Samobor
Planting a tree, performance, Gluscic hill near Samobor
Closed for public, performance, Matrix Croatica Gallery, Zagreb

1999
Always Already Apocalypse, project by Suzana Milevska, Institute for Earthquake Engineering and Engineer Seismology, Skopje; Yüksel Sabanci, Istanbul
Earthquake line, audio performance over the phone for the project Always Already Apocalypse Suzane Milevske, Yüksel Sabanci, Istanbul
1998 VJokes, performance, Pubs in Skopje, Rabac, Zagreb, Poreč etc

2003
United colors of Bužek, installation, SC, Zagreb

2001
The Resort of Homeless Ideas, web-project (work in progress) together with Magnus
Bärtas, internet
Objects that will have a museum value in hundred years, ready-made objects, Gallery VN, Zagreb

2000
Four Autopsychoanalysis, Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle, Western Australia
Things that are terribly disturbing people in other people's everyday behavior, web-project (work in progress) together with Nikola Iskra, Internet

1999
Biographies, installation, with Magnus Bärtas and Zeljko Zorica, Gallery VN, Zagreb

1998
Little big stories, project by Suzana Milevska, National University Library, Skopje; Riksarkivet, Stockholm

1997
Nostalgia, Gallery Lamparna, Labin
Tito – Bužek, land-art project, backyard of the artist's studio, Skopje
Ćifte Amam 3, Ćifte Hamam, Skopje

2016
Watercolors on canvas, paintings, Gallery Matrix Croatica, Zagreb

2013
Palettes, paintings, Gallery Kopjar, Zagreb

2011
Beyond shapaes, paintings, Gallery Matrix Croatica, Zagreb

2008
Selected works, paintings, Gallery Matrix Croatica, Zagreb

2005
Thinking postmodernism, collages and paintings, Exhibition space of the city tax-office, Zagreb

2004
United colors of Bužek, paintings, Gallery Matrix Croatica, Zagreb

2003
Selected works, exhibition of books, Gallery Miroslav Kraljevic, Zagreb
The Resort of Homeless Ideas, iexhibition of ideas together with Magnus Bärtas, Gallery Miroslav Kraljevic, Zagreb
First part of The Idiot by Fyodor Mickhailovich Dostoyevsky, reprint, Gallery VN, Zagreb

2002
The Resort of Homeless Ideas, exhibition of ideas together with Magnus Bärtas, Multimedia Center, Rijeka

1999
Fragmentspaintings, Gallery Cekao, Zagreb

1997
Expanding appearances, collages and paintings, Gallery Matrix Croatica, Zagreb
Prints, Art Salon DLUB (artists association), Bitola

1995
Posthistoric cycle, paintings, Gallery Karas, Zagreb

1994
Retrospective,drawings, graphics and paintings, Artist's Studio, Zagreb

1993
Posthistoric cycle III, paintings, Gallery Cekao, Zagreb

1992
Posthistoric cycle II, paintings, Bookshop Modern Times, Zagreb
Posthistoric cycle, paintings, Studio of the Gallery Karas, Zagreb

1988
Paysages, paintings, Studio of the Gallery Karas, Zagreb

1985. Drawings, Gallery VN, Zagreb

2010
Renaming Machine, project by Suzana Milevska, Open Space - Zentrum für Kunstprojekte, Wien

2009
Renaming Machine, project by Suzana Milevska, Gallery Miroslav Kraljevic, Zagreb

2007
5. Festival prvih, project Sponsor together with Vanja Babic and Zeljko Zorica, Gallery VN, Zagreb

2005
International Biennale of Contemporary Art, Worker's Club, project by Suzana Milevska, National Gallery, Prague

2004
I am here and you are there..., project by Barbara Steiner, Gallery of contemporary art Leipzig, Leipzig

2003
Conceptual art in Macedonia, Museum of contemporary art, Skopje

1999
2nd Croatian triennial of drawings, House of Croatian Visual Artists, Zagreb

1997
2nd international graphic triennial Bitola 1997, Museum and Gallery Bitola, Bitola

1993
Kunstband durch Europa, Künstlerclub DIE MÖWE, Berlin-Mitte; Südosteuropa Kulture e. V., Berlin Kreuzberg; Frauen-Museum, Bonn; Memorial Gallery Aleksandar Rukavina, Brtonigla; Gallery Fonticus - Gallery of the City of Artists, Grožnjan

1991
16th youth biennial, Gallery of Modern art, Rijeka

1990
25th Zagreb salon, Gliptoteka JAZU, Zagreb

1989
Who Are You Mr. Umpah Pah?!, collages, project by Hrvoje Bozicevic, 21st youth salon, Gallery Karas, Zagreb; Bologna; Ljubljana

1988
20th youth salon, Art pavilion, Zagreb

1987
14th youth biennial, Gallery of Modern art, Rijeka
18th youth salo, Modern Gallery, Zagreb

1986
14th exhibition of selected works of the members of SHDLU (Artists association), Gallery Karas, Zagreb
17th youth salon, Gallery Karas, Zagreb

2004
Winners of the award Vladimir Belogaski, Museum of the city of Skopje, Skopje

1999
Shadows, drawings, Gallery Matrix Croatica, Zagreb

1998
Expanding appearances, collages, Gallery 21, Aachen

1997
Expanding appearances, collages, Stenenbrug 4a, Maastricht

1996
Expanding appearances, collages, Museum of the City of Skopje, Skopje, (award Vladimir Belogaski)

1995
Kandinsky's abstractions, paintings, Gallery Stobi, Skopje

1985
Idiolalia - Calligrams, Cultural center, Ohrid

2011.
9. Festival prvih, Pogon Jedinstvo, Zagreb, Studio Artless

1988
Everyday rituals, materials for the last multimedia play that was never realized, Youth Club Crnomerec, Zagreb

1987
Everyday rituals, performance, Youth Center, Slavonski Brod

1986
Bite a stone and sacrifice ears for fine things, retrospective exhibition of U. G. Poskok works, Gallery DDP, Zagreb
Putting and taking down the poster for the exhibition Bite a stone and sacrifice ears for fine things, action, corner of the Gajeve and Varsavske street, Zagreb
Badges U. G. Poskok, 17. , Youth Salon, project Image and word on clothing by Vedrana Krsinic, Maja Povrzanovic and Hrvoje Zucko, Gallery Karas, Zagreb

1985
Intervention Zagreb 85, U. G. Poskok proposed eleven interventions for the occasion, which were so radical that only one was excepted, and for that one the organizer found another performer
Conan II (Integral version), multimedia play, Lapidarij, Zagreb
Hat show, performance together with Ana Lendvaj and Matija Vujica, Lapidarij, Zagreb
Finding the Center of the Universe, wall painting by Stijacic and Buzek, PUNZ (spring in New Zagreb), Zagreb
Camomile, music and scene play version by Stijacic and Buzek, PUNZ (spring in New Zagreb), Zagreb
Demonstration of the Sound, performance by Stijacic, Buzek and guests, PUNZ (spring in New Zagreb), Zagreb

1984
Cities, exhibition of architecture, Kalemegdan and Old Brewery, Belgrade That's what I own to myself, performance, FLU, Belgrade
Fly, performance by Miucin for the opening of the mail-art exhibition of Greiner & Kropilak, Gallery DDP, Zagreb
Titania, texts by Buzek, Iskra and Miucin, illustrations by Miucin, magazine Polet
Scene games, performance for the opening of the Gallery on the open, Gallery on the open, Crikvenica
The Big Bang Bad Band, performance, Bezistan, Beograd
Yugoslav Alternative Scene, songs and recites, separate for the Swedish radio on the occasion of the Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo, recorded in Studio B, RTB, Belgrade
Nebojsa Stijacic with U. G. Poskok, concert, YURM (YU Rock Moment), Lapidarij, Zagreb

1983.
Poskok live, Radio show, Radio 101, Zagreb

1981.
Dedicated to a woman, performance, KST, Belgrade

1980.
Billy The Kid was a writer, Academy (Fine Arts Faculty Student Club), Belgrade

CD

2001.
Group Poskok / Ritual songs

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