b. 1969, Croatia

Igor Grubić has been active as a multimedia artist in Zagreb since the early 1990s, making photography, video, and site-specific actions. These interventions into public space, along with video works that employ montage and jump cuts, represent past and present political situations while cutting through the fabric of reality.

East Side Story (2006–8) focuses on LGBTQ rights following violence against two pride parades in Belgrade and Zagreb in the early 2000s, through both televised images and scenes re-embodied by dancers. 366 Liberation Rituals is a performative diary turned historical document consisting of photographs of the artist’s micropolitical actions enacted each day from 2008–9 as a form of resistance. The experimental films Capitalism follows socialism (2012) and Monument (2015), which captures the Brutalist concrete Spomenik built by the former Yugoslav state for the victims of WWII fascism, consider post-transitional Croatia, and the monolithic – or fragile – construction of national memory.

Grubić represented Croatia at the 57th Venice Biennale and has participated in Manifesta 4 and 9, the 11th Istanbul Biennial, and the 20th Gwangju Biennale, as well as in numerous film festivals. His work has been acquired by TATE Modern, the Museums of Contemporary Art in Belgrade and Zagreb, MWW – Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Kunsthaus Zürich, FRAC Champagne Ardenne, Kontakt Collection Vienna, and Kadist in San Francisco, among others. Selected group shows include “Bigger Than Myself,” MAXXI, Rome (2021); “The Value of Freedom,” Belvedere 21, Wien (2019); “Zero Tolerance,” MoMA PS1, New York (2014); “East Side Stories,” Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); “Moving Forwards, Counting Backwards,” MUAC, Mexico City (2012); and “Gender Check,” mumok, Vienna (2009). His films have received various European awards. The artist also writes and produces socially committed documentaries and reportages.