Exhibition – Matko Vekić: Resort Without a Signal

At the Dubrovnik Museum of Modern Art, on Thursday, August 20, at 8 p.m., an exhibition by Croatian contemporary painter Matko Vekić, entitled Resort Without a Signal, will open. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Split Gallery of Fine Arts, where it will be presented in 2027.

Since the very beginning of his professional artistic career in the late 1990s, Matko Vekić has established himself as one of the most interesting painters of his generation. Although unquestionably committed to the traditional medium of painting, he addresses the contemporary human condition in an authentic way. Vekić’s thematic range has encompassed urban landscapes, the iconography of popular culture and mass media, criticism of dominant symbols of power, as well as observations of social changes reflected in our everyday lives.

His new series, Resort Without a Signal, comprises works created in 2025 and 2026 that explore Mediterranean spaces beyond the reach of networks, or signals. However, the new series cannot be fully understood without considering the series that preceded it, which will also be presented as part of the Dubrovnik exhibition. The series Archipelago, Tree on the Island, Drift, Existence on the Island, and Serenity, created between 2020 and 2025, represent a kind of tribute to nature and the environment, which the artist has precisely dissected and observed through a meticulous examination of visual elements and an exploration of the full potential of the medium of painting.

In his new series, Vekić presents a story of transition through unfinished, artificial and plastic structures that remain suspended in an in-between space and time, providing no signal to the outside world. The devastation of an ecosystem is evidenced by abandoned fences, half-finished walls, empty swimming pools and accumulated waste, creating a contemporary patina of time. These are places completely detached from the natural environment in which they were created, evoking in the artist a profound sense of human hurt in the face of such a lack of understanding and sensitivity toward the specific character and value of the spaces we inhabit.

The exhibition is curated by Jelena Tamindžija Donnart and Jasminka Babić (Split Gallery of Fine Arts), while Dora Lučić is the curator responsible for the exhibition at the Dubrovnik Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition will remain open until October 18, 2026.

Biography

Matko Vekić was born in 1970 in Zagreb, where he graduated in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1995. He has exhibited extensively in Croatia and abroad, including in Germany, Austria, Egypt, England, France, Turkey, Italy and Luxembourg. He represented Croatia twice at the Cairo Biennale, in 2006 and 2010, and at the Venice Biennale in 2009. He has undertaken study stays in Japan, Turkey and twice in India. He has received numerous awards for his work, and his artworks are held in the collections of many museums and galleries, as well as in numerous public and private collections in Croatia and abroad. Since 2017, he has been a full professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb.