The Museum of Fine Arts in Osijek issues a
CALL FOR ENTRIES for the 30th Slavonian Biennial.
Slavonian Biennial is a juried group exhibition at which contemporary visual art is presented, chosen by the Jury composed of the following members:
Tevž Logar, curator, chair of this Jury,
Lea Vene, curator
Vikotor Popović, artist
Róna Kopeczky, curator
Valentina Radoš, exhibition curator,
titled
30th Slavonian Biennial
This is not another biennial
This is not yet another biennial seeking to instrumentalise tradition and longevity as leverage for relevance, nor is it one that attempts to substantiate its credibility through a milestone anniversary; it is equally not a biennial that demands artists position themselves strictly within a thematic framework, or asks them to validate a sense of institutional gravity. Instead, through the exhibition’s title, we recognise the cyclical nature of historical shifts, clearly deciphering the past within the very moment we inhabit here and now. With this exhibition, we invite you to co-create a space that functions as a sanctuary – a site where we can gather in times of crisis, if only within a conceptual realm. In the age of artificial expansion, we want to return the human to humanity; in the digital noise, to find the analogue; and to restore breath and free speech to those who have been silenced.
This does remain a biennial that opens spaces for communication from a position outside the major global centres. Through decades of systemic growth, as a grassroots movement, our manifestation has proven the unexpected: the Slavonian Biennial is recognized by the shape of a human voice that is heard most clearly through the noise and exhaustion of a mandatory modernity – a voice that operates through oral and personal histories, as a chain reaction. The call we extend to artists year after year thus resonates much longer and further than could have been anticipated back in 1968, when the first biennial was staged in Osijek. With this
30th edition of the Slavonian Biennial, we engage directly with this very fact.
The question we ask ourselves is this: Does art possess a transformative and unifying power in times of crisis, if being contemporary means taking a step back, or returning to the autonomous parameters of the artwork? If we invert the dynamic of the call and give artists the agency of voice, what would they tell us?
Valentina Radoš
This is not a covenant of silence
No one recalls any of them signing it, for there was no ceremony, no ink, no glare of floodlights, no raised hands — only a gradual quieting, a fading of voices. It is as if we were warned long ago of a fissure between what we witness and what we are permitted to think, and an even greater one between what we think and what we dare to utter — yet, despite this, we continued to believe the spectacle. It began, as such things usually do, with minor civilities that were in truth merely polite forms of contempt: a laugh left unchallenged, a symbol left unquestioned, and words permitted only because halting them required too great a struggle.
Someone once wrote that the most dangerous dissenting thoughts are not banned, but rather exhausted to the point of self-abandonment. Thus, the vow was born not of loyalty but of exhaustion and ignorance; silence became a form of hygiene, where people learned to purge their thoughts and words before they could even form them, as if suspecting that walls possess a longer memory than humans. Over time, it was not only the word that vanished, but also the mouths capable of speaking it — yet on screens, the world continued to practice its composure, smooth and orderly, as though normalcy had survived precisely because it had been rendered voiceless.
In the ancient lore of our world, empires asserted themselves through fire and sword; yet in more recent, modern iterations, they prefer the medium of light — whether bright and unwavering, held within an intimate grasp, or staging a spectacle. Whatever the intensity, it operates such that everything in its glow appears clean, inevitable, and, naturally, utterly righteous. Under such light, even shadows lose their right to exist. The stage is crowded with people speaking constantly and loudly of many things, most often of roots, as if roots were incapable of draining the very soil that nourishes them. They speak incessantly of preservation, employing the gentle rhetoric of gardeners, even as their gardens grow tidier with each passing season, leaving fewer and fewer forms of life permitted to dwell within them. At times, it feels as though disparate thoughts and words haul themselves before a kind of invisible tribunal, where they never learn the charges against them, yet quietly vanish nonetheless And the audience, relieved to be handed a simple text, bursts into applause on cue, immensely grateful to be spared the burden of doubt and resistance. Some even believe it to be applause, though it resonates more like a verification of whether their palms still retain the shape of compliance — as in a novel where the correct gesture was of greater consequence than genuine conviction.
Watching the neighbors across the street practice this game brings a distinct kind of loneliness, reminiscent of those ancient verses where people remained silent when they came for others, believing those others shared nothing in common with them. It always begins with the others; there is always the solace of distance. Without debate, the group agrees to look past the person standing on the edge — neither entirely inside nor entirely outside — until that person becomes a word, the word threat, and the threat an excuse. In truth, aside from the costumes, nothing has changed in all these years. The mechanism is older than memory: first the naming, then the repetition, and from this, suddenly, a miracle is born, whereby repetition begins to look like truth. And truth, repeated long enough, begins to sound like a song people know by heart, though they no longer remember where they first heard it. Yet, this devotion must also be meticulously maintained. It relies on the discipline of the people, on their willingness to swallow a bitter word, to overlook gestures, and to mistake the familiar for the harmless. It relies on their faith that the violence of history happens elsewhere — in other languages, on other bodies, on other plains, in other mountains, and on other shores. It relies on their hope that they will pass unnoticed if they only become quieter themselves.
But sometimes, late at night, when the streets are empty and the flags hang windless, there emerges the faintest hint of another sound — not yet loud, but persistent. Like the turning of a page, like a distant, almost forgotten verse; and as though someone, somewhere, is rehearsing how to speak once more, despite knowing that maybe no one listens. At that moment, it becomes plain that the covenant of silence was never intended solely for oblivion, but for waiting. It was a secret archive of the unspoken, a sanctuary where words outlived their prohibition. And perhaps, all along, it carried something else within itself: not consent, but refusal; not the end, but a beginning. For every imposed silence already bears at its core the seed of a voice that will one day return — not as a whisper, but as something that has lived too long without the shelter of the written word, like words that must be removed from books in order to remain alive. And when they return, they return altered — sharper, more perilous, and finally free.
Tevž Logar
CALL FOR ENTRIES AND SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR THE 30TH SLAVONIAN BIENNIAL
All entries must include the following:
● personal information: first name, family name, date of birth, address, phone number, e-mail address;
● professional résumé;
● complete documentation on the submitted work, including the technical data about the display and making of the work (name, year, technique, dimensions, exhibitions to date);
● high-resolution photograph or draft, and in the case of performance art a detailed synopsis is also required;
● artist’s statement about the artwork;
● signed consent for personal data usage (please find at www.mlu.hr)
Artists may enter only one work. All submitted works must be exhibition-ready.
Only works created after 1 July 2024 may be entered. The call is open for entries from its announcement until 31 August 2026. The exhibition will be held in several exhibition spaces in Osijek (while the Museum of Fine Arts is closed for reconstruction) from December 2026 to February 2027.
Works must be entered digitally in one PDF document. The Jury may ask for additional information or to see the work. In addition to the selected works, works by artists invited to participate may also be included in the exhibition.
The artists grant the Museum the right to use and reproduce submitted materials for the purpose of promoting the Slavonian Biennial in all media, as well as for the catalogue. The abbreviated artistic statements will be used in the exhibition setting and on the Museum’s web-site and Facebook pages for the duration of the exhibition. By submitting to the open call, the artist also gives consent for the work to remain in the Museum for the entire duration of the exhibition.
The works exhibited at the Slavonian Biennial will be returned in the same way they were received, i.e. the authors will retrieve the works delivered in person, and the works received by post will be returned in the same way, unless the artists and the Museum agree otherwise. In case of returning the works by mail, the postal costs are borne by the Museum.
Entries, containing everything required, is to be sent by e-mail to:
For additional inquiries please call:
00385 31 – 251 280
00385 31 – 251 284
00385 91 522 1416
The entry is valid if it is received by e-mail before midnight of the deadline day.
Incomplete or late entries will not be considered.
Please see all other information and Rules for the Slavonian Biennial Exhibition at
www.mlu.hr