Barbara Vujanović

Biography

Barbara Vujanović is a Chief Curator at the Meštrović Atelier (The Ivan Meštrović Museums) in Zagreb. Her research background is in art history and French language and literature and she is wrote her doctoral dissertation on ‘From antique models to neoclassicism : a classical component in the work of Ivan Meštrović’.

Since participating in the ITP, Barbara has presented the exhibitions, Ivan Meštrović: Adriatic Epopee in Krakow (2017), Corporeality and Eroticism in Sculpture in in Ljubljana (2018) Ivan Meštrović (1883–1962). Sculptor and Citizen of the World in Prague (2022–2023), and Ivan Meštrović – the Retrospective in Zagreb (2023–2024). She also authored the exhibitions Ivan Meštrović – Portraits of Contemporaries – Universes of personal encounters and social involvements (2021–2022), The Sign of Meštrović in Zagreb – Architecture: The 80 Years of the Meštrović Pavilion (Zagreb, 2018–2019). She is the author of the book The Mark of Meštrović in Zagreb (2017) and co-author of the book Ivan Meštrović and the Czechs: Examples of the Croatian-Czech Cultural and Political Reciprocity (2018). She regularly publishes reviews and articles, writes prefaces for catalogues and devises the curatorial conceptions for independent and group exhibitions of 19th, 20th century and contemporary art. She has also presented research on the life and work of Ivan Meštrović at conferences in Croatia as well as abroad in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Norway, China, Czech Republic, Latvia and Malta.

In 2017, Barbara presented alongside fellow 2016 ITP participant Ana Šverko on the experience and knowledge gained during their time at the British Museum in a lecture organised by Prokultura: Observatory of Cultural Politics, Ivan Mestrovic Museums and Art History Institute, and the Centre Cvito Fisković.

Barbara is co-author and co-curator on the British Museum’s 2018 exhibition Rodin and the art of Ancient Greece.

At the British Museum

During her time on the International Training Programme in 2016, Barbara was based in the Department of Greece and Rome. Her UK Partner Museum was The Manchester Museum and Manchester Art Gallery.

In 2016, participants were asked to develop a proposal for an Asahi Shimbun Display – a temporary exhibition in Room 3 at the British Museum – based around a single ‘spotlight’ object.  Barbara’s exhibition project proposal was entitled Power and the Meaning of the Fragment.

Barbara’s place on the International Training Programme was generously supported by the John Armitage Trust.

Legacy Projects

As a result of her exhibition project proposal, and her curatorial expertise, Barbara was invited back to the British Museum in 2017 to help deliver a Spotlight Loan Project. To coincide with the British Museum’s blockbuster exhibition Rodin and the art of ancient Greece, Barbara worked on Rodin: rethinking the fragment, which toured to three UK venues – Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal; Holburne Museum, Bath and The New Art Gallery, Walsall – from summer 2018 – 2019.

Barbara has returned to the British Museum many times and visited BM UK partner venues to participate in meetings, conduct research and deliver curator’s talks.

In 2023 the British Museum hosted an event in celebration of the International Training Programme and the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust’s vital support of the programme over the years. Barbara delivered a speech at the event to share her experiences of the ITP and the work she has gone on to do since completing the programme.

ITP Newsletter Publications
ITP Newsletter Issue 5 (2018), Bulletin Board