Mak Melcher - No Interpretation

In the Studio of the Antun Augustinčić Gallery in Klanjec, on Friday, February 21, 2025, at 6 p.m., the exhibition Mak Melcher - No Interpretation opens, which will last until April 6, 2025.

Mak Melcher is back in Klanjec. Twelve years ago, we presented him in our Gallery as a young, promising sculptor, and with this exhibition in its Studio, which is his twelfth solo exhibition, we present him as a mature sculptor who has fully justified all our high expectations, in terms of preserving working, sculptural, fine, artistic, aesthetic, ethical and moral, all human and life values. Self-effacing and above all self-aware, with every exhibition so far, whether it was created from a pile of clay or meters of paper, he consistently and credibly testifies to how important craft skills, all inherited knowledge and acquired experience are in order to achieve mastery. Despite this, or precisely because, the sculptural expression also includes the category of time in the understanding of sculpture. On the one hand, this fourth dimension will modify, decompose and dissolve the three-dimensional form, but on the other hand, it will build on, complement and expand the very concept of sculpture. By not naming the works or by naming them only formally, he allows them to address us directly. We present them with understanding. Without interpretation.

The exhibition was realized with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, and can be viewed daily, except Mondays, from 9 am to 5 pm (Saturday and Sunday in April from 10 am to 6 pm).

Mak Melcher was born on March 8, 1983 in Mostar. After graduating from the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb, Department of Ceramics, in 2003 he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb, where he graduated in 2008 from the Sculpture Department in the class of full professor of art Miro Vuco. During his studies, he was a scholarship holder of the City of Zagreb. From 2003 to 2004, he worked as an assistant to sculptor Marija Ujević. In 2008, he worked as a wax retoucher at the Ujević Art Foundry, where he had the opportunity to learn the complete casting craft. From 2008 to July 2009, he worked at the Hedom company as an associate conservator/restorer on the renovation of the Upper Town facades in Zagreb. From 2010 to the present, he has been working as an assistant to sculptor Dalibor Stošić. From May to June 2010, he worked at the Bedekovčina High School as a teacher of professional subjects in the stonemasonry technician department. From 2011 to the present, he has been working as a teacher at the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb in the sculpture, arrangement-scenography and ceramic design departments. As part of the International Sculpture Symposium Cavae Romanae in July 2010, he did an artistic residency in Vinkuran near Pula and realized a sculpture in a public space. As part of the international cultural cooperation program, he was staying at the prestigious Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in July and August 2019. He has won several awards, including: the equivalent purchase prize in the competition for the Monument to Croatian Defenders in Beli Manastir (2011), the 3rd prize at the 32nd Youth Salon (2014), and the Iva Vraneković Award – Artist to Artist (2016). Since 2005, he has organized 11 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 30 group exhibitions in the country and abroad, and since 2004, he has participated in 7 sculpture symposia and colonies. His works are in the holdings of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb and the Antun Augustinčić Gallery in Klanjec, as well as in various private collections. He is a member of the Croatian Society of Fine Artists (HDLU).