Vedran Kopljar (& parents) – MEAN

Creating and cultivating meaning stand at the heart of Vedran Kopljar’s art. In his practice—which includes painting, video, performance and words—Vedran Kopljar continuously searches for and experiments with different systems used to create meaning. For him, conceptualizing an art exhibition or playing a game of Remi (a variant of Rummy) are equally significant experiences in this quest for making more or less sense. Each action or interaction represents an opportunity to experience, reflect upon and challenge specific sets of rules and formal processes. Both conceptual and existential, Kopljar’s works attempt to grasp and understand the underlying logic behind the construction of reality and the making of its norms and values.

For his first institutional exhibition, Vedran Kopljar apprehends the space as a closed circuit. At times logical, at times contradictory, but never conclusive, a constellation of painted works plays with the idea of forming a cohesive system. The works on display include didactic paintings boldly enunciating words and designs; poems as paintings; painted game scores, and psychedelic paintings resembling mental images that exist outside any classification Kopljar manipulates a variety of registers: educational language and ideological terms are intersected with laid-back expressions and uncontrolled phrasings, all of which contribute to his experiment with the mechanisms of learning and unlearning, identification and standardization, consciousness and abstraction.

As facetious as it may be, meaning as an entity has oftentimes struck me as being mean – mean-natured. Meaning is mean-natured, is what I want to propose. I question what it is to be -natured and so I drift into questions of what is cultivated and civilized. Probably because I want to think about cultivation and civilization. Maybe I am being mean in proposing meaning to be mean-natured. Notice how I don’t question myself being mean-natured and only question if I was temporarily being mean to a certain entity. Typical!

ON MEANING, Vedran Kopljar

Biography

Vedran Kopljar (1991, Slavonski Brod, Croatia) is a visual artist working primarily with painting, performance, and communication. Kopljar completed a MFA in painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp where he now holds a position as a teacher and researcher. Since graduating in 2014 he has had solo exhibitions in several galleries and public art venues including (wish i was there)2, Josip Račić Gallery (year);NMMU (National Museum of Moderna Art), Zagreb (2023); Also (HERE) and The Misadventures of Plank Communication Center, LambdaLambdaLambda, Pristina (2023); The Cloud of Unknowing: New Teachings, CASSTL, Antwerp (2022); Plank Communication Center: Quarterly Report, RU, Brooklyn (2019); Thumbsucker’s Delight, Trampoline Gallery, Antwerp (2018). His work has also been presented in group exhibitions including Portals, LambdaLambdaLambda at Soft Opening, London (2024); Window Openers, Artwell Residency, Amsterdam (2022); The Constant Glitch, Museum M, Leuven (2021); 7th Biennial of Painting, Inner Spaces, Roger Raveel Museum, Machelen-aan-de-Leie (2020); Nachbarbesuch, TYSON, Cologne (2019); NowBelgiumNow, LLS 387, Antwerp (2016).

In 2019 Kopljar founded The Plank Communication Centre, a pseudo-institution archiving forms of communication between himself and American minimalist John McCracken’s Plank works. The project stands as an artistic investigation of the relationship between viewers, art objects, and art institutions. Since 2021 The Plank Communication Centre archives are hosted by Museum M, Leuven. Following his exhibition at M HKA, Vedran Kopljar will present his work at Bio Gallery, Seoul and as part of a group exhibition at S.M.A.K., Ghent. Kopljar is also involved at Lichtekooi, a non-profit Antwerp-based art space founded in 2021, as a member of the board of directors.

This exhibition is part of M HKA’s IN SITU programme, a series of exhibitions focusing on the development of new work and projects commissioned for the largest and most atypical space in the museum

Events

A musical reading on meaning
Saturday 18 May, 16:00
Card game with musical accompaniment
Players: Vedran Kopljar, Vladi Kopljar, Rada Kopljar
Music: Jan Suzy

Vedran Kopljar
Artist talk
Thursday 27 June, 19:00
Programmed as part of Front Row, a series of artist talks jointly organized by M HKA and NICC.

Credits

The M HKA would like to express its gratitude to Vedran Kopljar for his commitment and generosity throughout the development of this exhibition.Thank you to Thomas Huyvaert, Vladi Kopljar, Rada Kopljar,…..With the generous support of Claessens Artists’Canvas, Waregem.