Image: Museum of Arts and Crafts, Zagreb
An exhibition of works by Menče Spirovska will open on 28 October at 19:00 at the Mala Stanica Multimedia Centre of the National Gallery of the Republic of North Macedonia in Skopje.
The exhibition continues cooperation between the Museum of Arts and Crafts and one of the leading national galleries in the Republic of North Macedonia, and results from a bilateral cultural-cooperation agreement signed in March. It is a joint project of the Museum of Arts and Crafts and the Cultural Information Centre of the Republic of North Macedonia, organized for the Museum’s 145th anniversary.
The Skopje presentation will show Macedonian audiences, for the first time, the complete artistic output by Spirovska held in the Museum of Arts and Crafts’s collection and created during her period of study in Zagreb.
The exhibition’s central work is Spirovska’s only currently known and previously unexhibited graphic-design work: a complete concept for a tourist brochure titled 'Zagreb.' The work combines functional design, a city map, illustrations of landmarks and typographic investigations of Zagreb’s identity in the 1950s.
The exhibition also includes Spirovska’s graduation portfolio 'Old Zagreb,' a group of woodcuts depicting melancholy urban scenes without people and with a strong Expressionist inflection. Its broader presentation includes 15 prints from the Museum’s print collection, 16 works or graphic-design concepts from its graphic-design collection, and private photographs from Spirovska’s Zagreb period.
The exhibition presents the contribution of Macedonian students to Zagreb’s 1950s art scene, with Spirovska positioned as a mediator of the cultural and aesthetic values of the two countries. It is curated by Antonia Došen and Koraljka Vlajo, museum advisers at the Museum of Arts and Crafts responsible for its print, bookbinding, graphic-design and product-design collections.
