Muzej-Museo Lapidarium
With great pleasure, we present the winner of the ‘Rigo Gallery Award’ and invite you to the exhibition
Leo Subanović – PLAYGROUND
The awarding of the Rigo Gallery’s special award for young artists in celebration of three decades of the Gallery additionally emphasises the significance of Leo Subanović’s work, who, through textile art, explores the relationships between the geometric and the figurative, the contemporary and the traditional. Relying on motifs from folklore, nature and everyday life, the artist reinterprets the techniques of weaving, embroidery, sewing, collage and assemblage as basic media. In this way, Leo Subanović explores, on one hand, themes of identity and social reflections, creating spaces that resist conventions and invite a broader discussion about the social role of art. On the other hand, by using fabric and thread as toolsofnarration, storytelling and dialogue, he brings, if not new, then different perceptions of everyday objects.
© Leo Subanović
The first of the three recent juxtaposed installations in the Rigo Gallery also speaks of this. Leo Subanović finds the starting point for this in his personal children’s “trick”, imagining invisible protectors, which he maps onto functional urban elements, in this case, parking bollards. Each of the bollards has animals that evoke archetypal figures of protection woven around. In this way, these everyday objects are transformed into artistic installations that invite reflection on boundaries, safety and the role of imagination in shaping our experience of space. It is this symbolic security that enables the playfulness and openness necessary to experience his works.
In addition to the “bollards”, “Sun Networks”, works by Leo Subanović in which he explores the role of light in creating a visual experience, as the sun’s rays contain a range of colours visible to our eyes, are exhibited. Using plastic shapes, mostly made from waste materials and textiles, connected into a network-like structure that catches the sun’s rays, the effect of a spectrum of colours is created, like a prism or a raindrop.
And the third unit, the installation “Sea Cubes”, filled with thread, yarn and wire, is inspired by the organic structures of sea sponges and corals. Modular and unstable forms allow for free arrangement, suggesting processes of growth, connection and constant change. Their installation is an invitation to create new structures.
© Leo Subanović
Leo Subanović (Zagreb, 1999) first encountered textiles during his childhoodas a member of the Puppetry Collective of the Zagreb Youth Theatre under the direction of Natalie Murat-Dean. He performed with the Collective twice at the International Puppet Theatre Festival PIF (Pupteatra Internacia Festivalo). These early artistic activities sparked his interest in textiles and various production techniques, which later guided his education. In 2024, he graduated in textile design from the Faculty of Textile Technology, University of Zagreb, under the mentorship of Lee Popinjač. During his studies, he attended the Erasmus+ graduate program at the Academy of Arts in Łódź, Poland, where he mastered the methods and techniques of papermaking under the mentorship of Magdalena Soboń.
Leo Subanović already distinguished himselfwhile attending the School of Applied Arts in Zagreb, receiving the Design Plus award for product design at AMBIENTA, the 43rd international fair of furniture, interior design and related industries.
During his studies, he exhibited with his colleagues at several group exhibitions, collaborated with the ReGalerija company in the production of carpets, and at The Croatian Design Exhibition 21/22 he was awarded a special award in the category of Student Industrial/Product Design.
© Leo Subanović
He has exhibited at group and solo exhibitions in Croatia and abroad, including in 2023 at the BIEN Textile Art Biennial (Gong Gallery, Nova Gorica) and the DA! Festival, a student festival of design, architecture and art, where he was awarded 2nd prize for his work in the fine arts category, and in 2025 at the same festival he was awarded 1st prize in the fine arts category. In the same year, he was one of the selected finalists in the Golden Watermelon 9.0 Young Artists Award competition, whose works were exhibited at the Golden Watermelon exhibition “accelerate.exe” at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Istria. He is a member of the Croatian Association of Artists of Applied Arts and the Croatian Society of Artists.
© Leo Subanović
The exhibition “Playground” by Leo Subanović was realized on the occasion of the Rigo Gallery Award, which the Lapidarium Museum, as part of celebrating 30 years of the Rigo Gallery, intended for one of the finalists of the Golden Watermelon 9.0 “accelerate.exe” exhibition, held at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Istria from April 18 to May 18, 2025. The award consists of the realization of a solo exhibition at the Rigo Gallery, which was created in collaboration with the Metamedij Association from Pula. More at www. metamedia.hr/zlatna-lubenica-9-0. and www.msu-istre.hr.
The Metamedij Association from Pula is a non-profit organization that initiates and encourages artistic and cultural initiatives in the field of new media art and new technologies. Since 2017, it has been announcing the annual competition “Golden Watermelon Award for Young Artists”, and is organizing an exhibition of the same name with selected finalists of the invitational competition. More at www.metamedia.hr.
Galerija Rigo, Velika ulica 5, 52466 Novigrad-Cittanova
Tel: 052 726 582, e-mail: info@muzej-lapidarium.hr
Exhibition opening, photo archive of MML
Exhibition opening, photo archive of MML
Exhibition opening, photo archive of MML
