Izvan Okvira – Beyond the Boundaries

Izvan Okvira – Beyond the Boundaries is a cultural initiative launched in Zagreb, Croatia in October 2020. After months of pandemic-induced restrictions, one of the challenges of most countries was to reinvent tourism within the constraints of sanitary conditions. The particular case of Zagreb was also to deal with the trauma of the earthquake that happened on March 22nd of the same year, which left part of the city shattered. In this context, where museums had to close as much to limit the spreading of the virus as to restore parts of their buildings damaged by the earthquake, there was an urge to find a new way to bring art to the people. Beyond the Boundaries shows different artworks in the public space, solving therefore the closure of art spaces.

This public month-long exhibition took place at three venues: The Museum of Arts and Crafts, together with the School of Applied Arts and Design, the Art Pavillon, and the Klovicevi Dvori Gallery & Gradec Gallery. Each of them offered different experiences: a metal sculpture “growing” on the stairs of a building, light pulsating from the inside and showing through the windows of another, and even an homage to the paintings of a gallery, with paintings inspired by different patterns found among the artworks hung directly onto the facade of the gallery.

The identity was designed by Zoran Đukić, who decided to play with the famous architecture of the closed buildings. His superimposition of architectural shapes creates a circularity evoking a stroll around the city: plus, the fact that we only see them as contours shows the actual experience of these buildings we can have, that is to say, from the outside only. The identity relies on two typefaces: Favorit from Dinamo and Rector from Production Type. Rector was designed by Zagreb-based type designer Hrvoje Živčić: this inscriptional serif anchors the identity in its territory, while keeping the relation to architecture through its stone-carving inspirations. Favorit (together with Favorit Lining) offers a contemporary touch to the identity and shows a more rational construction, working as foundation, as can be seen with the typical capital R.