1st July to 2nd August 2021
Jelsa, Croatia

Jelsa Art Biennial, mostly performed in public spaces, brings contemporary art closer to broad audiences and carries the message of social responsibility. In the biennial program from the end of June to August 2021, supported by Saturn’s oppositions with Venus, Mars, and the Sun (an astronomical phenomenon that will take place in the night sky during the biennial), we will present the reflections of local and international artists on the metaphorical interpretations of the Solar System's sixth planet. Saturn traditionally implies moral and material crises as the price of every development of personality, directs individuals to great life trials, limitations, inevitable falls, and the power of social and spiritual ascension. Looking back at the aspects of the sixth planet of the Solar System and its metaphorical mythological turn from the agricultural fruit-bearer to the Father of Time, 𝐉𝐀𝐁𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟏 will focus on time as the basic dimension of our existence, and the fact it destroys as much as it creates. In accordance with this principle, the main locations of research and presentation of Jelsa Art Biennial were selected: on the one hand, abandoned structures, overtaken by nature; on the other hand, locations in the nature where life flourishes, which are, in turn, unstoppably taken over by man.

In such a way, Jelsa Art Biennial 2021 wants to address the burning issues of our everyday life: the apparent acceleration of time as opposed to its slowing down, the processes of decaying opposed to the processes of construction, transience and mortality, intergenerational relations, and the eternal scattering of matter and time in contrast with the impossibility of disintegration in the midst of the ecological crisis that marks the age in which we live.

Participating artists:

Hotel Jadran: Luzinterruptus (ES)
Ambulance: Paulina Almeida (PT), Valerija Djanješić (HR), Vitar Drinković (HR), God's Entertainment (AT), Domagoj Hmura (HR), Jelena Kovačev (HR), Dejan Krstić (RS), Iva Mihanović (HR), Moon Gallery (NL)
Ager: Sascha Aleksandar (RS), Matthias Hurtl (AT), Openfield Creative Lab (PT)
Pop-up programme: Rodrigo Areias (PT), Anja Leko & Andrej Beštak (HR), Matthias Hurtl (AT), Sara Renar (HR)
Residency participants: Elena Štrok, Oirana Morales, Josipa Slaviček, Iva Šintić, Vitar Drinković, Dejan Krstić, Vita Jončić, Iskra Krasić