Opening: 29/3 at 7 pm
The exhibition “The Last Flower?” features around twenty works from the collection of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, focusing on the motif of flowers. It was conceived as an exercise in community participation and includes workshop contributions from two museum groups: Morning Idling – a group of senior women from Rijeka – and The Curator Clique – a collective of local women who occasionally collaborate on museum programs and who came up with the idea for this exhibition.
Without flowers, we wouldn’t exist. Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire (2001)
Although plant life is older the human era, we tend to think of ourselves as superior and more advanced, seemingly autonomous from the plant world. However, without plants, our world would cease to exist. Plants make our existence possible, and this very notion served as the inspiration for this participatory exhibition – one we open in honor of spring, even as the seasons increasingly stray from their usual calendar dates. In the museum’s art collections, plants most often appear in the form of flowers – the most extravagant and visually striking elements. We highlight these motifs in works by both well-known and lesser-known artists, including professional artists and self-taught creators. Spanning the last 170 years, their paintings, prints, sculptures, and photographs bridge modern and contemporary art. From the ‘timid’ dandelion to the ‘eccentric’ rose, we present floral motifs in a variety of aesthetic and symbolic arrangements – but instead of placing them on the walls, we gather them on a table. In this manner, we symbolically blur the boundaries between the luxurious and the wild, salves and thorns, as well as between elite and everyday culture.
These artworks encourage us to immerse ourselves in nature’s cycles, in the processes of growth and decay, but also to reflect on our own transience. Alongside journal-like notes and records of psychological states, the works predominantly appear in the form of memorabilia from travels and striking encounters that challenge the boundaries between subject and object, human and environment. Rather than adopting the language of ownership, this floral procession explores the potential for allied relationships between bipeds and plant species. Flowers also become expressions of emotion, psyche, and spiritual states – and sometimes even female positions, shaped by social values, political ideologies, and the roles assigned to women in specific cultural and historical contexts, oscillating between invisibility, resilience, and capriciousness.
Along with the contributions from the above-mentioned workshops, inspired by botanical models and herbarium practices and focusing on the adaptability and resilience of the plant world, the exhibition also features textual reflections by the Curator Clique. Written from a contemporary perspective, the texts speak about the exhibited works, taking into consideration the biographical and historical contexts of the artists. An emphasis is also placed on the evocative power of botanical metaphors and phrases, associated with the selected artworks, which convey abstract concepts and emotions. Finally, these reflections explore the botany of desire, the relationship between humans and flowers, and the diverse therapeutic roles that flowers embody.
Artists featured in the Museum’s collections: Belizar Bahorić, Missy with Flower, 1980, assemblage; Ahmed Bešić, Gemma II, 1979, sculpture; Jim Cave, Mind colour, 1976, print; Vlaho Bukovac, Ms Tartaglia on Her Deathbed, 1885, painting; Marina Banić Zrinšćak, From the Cycle Mediterranean Altars, Altar for Selma (Birthday Altar), 1990, assemblage; Nuzzi Ivancich Chierego, The Window, 1936, painting; Ranko Dokmanović, London, 1980, photo; Ivan Kožarić, Anticipation…, 2006, prints; Adam Krajewski, Portrait of a Girl with a Rose, 1981, photo; Krystof Kurzydlo, Lily of the Valley Vendor, 2000, photo; Ivan Lacković Croata, Chrysanthemums, 1964, painting; Miron Makanec, Still Life, 1950–1955, painting; Mira Marković Sandić, Dandelion, around 1960, sculpture; Petra Mrša, Getting To Know the Environment 2, Collection of plants and animals from Kuberton, 2019, photographs; Slava Raškaj, Sketchbook and Aquarelle Study,1899, paintings; Giovanni Simonetti, Woman with a Mask, around 1847, painting; Romolo Venucci, Mother’s Flowers in a Vase, 1956, Flowers in a Vase (Carnation), 1967, paintings; Lazar Vujaklija, The Girl and the Moon, 1958, painting
Invited artists: Milijana Babić (mentor of “Flytrap Dance” workshop that was caried out with Morning Idling, Tanja Blašković (exhibition equipment design), Melita Sorola Staničić (leader of workshop “Spring Journals”, carried out with The Curator Clique)
Design: Marin Nižić
Curatorial team: Gordana Domijan, Ivona Grgas-Roknić, Irena Hojsak, Dubravka Kalinić, Lea Maravić, Magdalena Medved, Andrea Morell, Lucia Paliska, Sanja Puljar D’Alessio, Karla Štimac, Lidija Toman, Tina Tus, Gordana Vrtodušić (The Curator Clique); Ivana Golob-Mihić, Ksenija Orelj (MMSU)
Members of Morning Idling museum group: Vesna Bogović, Ljiljana Dumančić, Stojanka Ivšić, Đeni Jarić, Đina Jurčić, Milica Pulko, Mladenka Radišić, Fiorela Renko, Nina Rukavina, Štefi Sila, Sabina Stojanović, Ornela Tomić, Gloriamaria Toth
Made inclusive in collaboration with the association “Kultura svima svugdje”
Photo: Tanja Blašković, Meadow (in this context, Tablecloth), 2025.
Support: Ministry of Culture and Media, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, City of Rijeka
Special thanks to: Caffe bar Gala
