MSU Unveils Fall Program
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb has announced a series of new exhibitions and festivals, including a poignant herbarium by Ismar Čirkinagić and a Device Art Festival focused on the Korean scene.
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb has announced a series of new exhibitions and festivals, including a poignant herbarium by Ismar Čirkinagić and a Device Art Festival focused on the Korean scene.
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU) in Zagreb continues to offer a rich summer program, but it is already revealing exciting plans for the upcoming fall. In September, two major exhibitions will open, bringing powerful artistic narratives-from an intimate testimony of war and renewal to cutting-edge technological art from South Korea.
The centerpiece of the fall season will be the exhibition "Ismar Čirkinagić: Herbarium", opening on September 15, 2026, and running until November 8. Since 2004, Bosnian-Danish artist Ismar Čirkinagić has been collecting and identifying plants growing at mass grave sites across Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the area around Prijedor.
The exhibition will present seventy new plant species, each accompanied by data about the execution site where it was found. "Seventy new plant species, each with details of the site, offer a visually powerful testimony to the legacy of war and violence, but also to renewal and new life," the exhibition announcement states. The curators are Tijana Mišković, Morana Matković, and Vesna Meštrić.
Late September, specifically September 29, 2026, marks the start of the eighth edition of the Device Art Festival, which will run until October 27. This year's edition, realized in collaboration with the Kontejner association, focuses on the South Korean art scene. The program is being shaped in partnership with the curatorial collective Vestige, whose members include Yunchul Kim, Jungyeon Park, and Menger Chu.
Visitors will be able to see a cross-section of works by Korean artists with a hybrid approach that combines technology, science, and art. Among the exhibitors are artists Lee Bul and Miren Lee. The festival curators are Tereza Teklić, Davorka Begović, and Martina Munivrana.
Before the major fall openings, MSU offers a range of current exhibitions. Until September 20, 2026, the exhibition "Željko Jerman: Death in Korkyra, from the MSU Collection" is on view, dedicated to a prominent figure in Croatian conceptual and experimental photography. The display was created in collaboration with Siva zona, a space for contemporary and media art in Korčula, and the Korčula Town Museum, and is part of a broader program taking place in Zagreb and Korčula.
Photography enthusiasts can visit the 14th edition of the international festival Organ Vida until September 6, 2026. This year's edition, titled "Happy in the Vortex," explores the impact of contemporary visual culture on reality through works by eleven finalists and three major solo exhibitions by Julie Béna, Kevin Osépa, and Sara De Brito Faustino.
As part of the "Triggers" cycle, until August 30, 2026, visitors can view an exhibition by Kristian Kožul that, through a dialogue with works by Ivan Generalić and his own series of sculptures inspired by the 1573 Peasants' Revolt, questions the contemporary rise of techno-feudalism. In the Black Box, until August 23, 2026, the exhibition "Sentempa Mundo / Timeless World" by French artist Margot is on display, marking her first presentation in Croatia.
Film enthusiasts can catch four European films at the MSU cinema from August 18 to 21, 2026. The program opens with the award-winning film "Koke" by Igor Jelinović, which won the Big Golden Arena for Best Film at the 73rd Pula Film Festival. It is followed by the Irish comedy-drama "Once Upon a Time in the Cinema," the screen adaptation of Bronja Žakelj's autobiographical novel "Washed in White at Ninety," and "Bitter Christmas," the new film by Pedro Almodóvar.
Long-term international collaboration also leads to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, where part of the MSU collection will be presented until February 2028. The exhibition segment "Invitation: Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb" will showcase the Zagreb art scene of the 1960s.
The permanent display "The Collection as a Verb" continues to offer a tour through four exhibitions featuring works by around 150 authors, groups, and movements, with the concept constantly evolving through the "Triggers" and "Situations" cycles.
