“Such is the belief in life, in the most precarious aspects of life, by which is meant real life, that in the end belief is lost. Man, that inveterate dreamer, more and more discontented day by day with his fate, orbits with difficulty around the objects he has been led to make use of, those which indifference has handed him, or his own efforts, almost always his efforts, since he has consented to labour, at least he has not been averse to chancing his luck (what he calls his luck!).” André Breton With these words, ninety years ago, André Breton began his first Manifesto of Surrealism. Breton’s manifesto was written in the last millennium, yet Breton’s words still hold true when it comes to Hraste’s latest project Arnold, teeming with intense surrealist dream-like visions. The first time I saw all parts of this exhibition-turned sculpture installation, for the reason I can not explain, I had to get out of the building as soon as possible, and walk around it several times. Hraste graduated in sculpture in 2006, under the guidance of Slavomir Drinković, and what he has ever since been trying to keep present, to himself and to the public interested in his work, is that a piece that does not communicate clearly the artist’s message within the first half a minute is not a particularly successful piece of work, let alone art. At the same time, he never ever calls himself an artist. He says he is a dreamer of the real, an explorer of the intriguing, and an interested observer who tries to participate in the social reality. But he never says he is an artist. In Arnold (a tribute to the memory of Arnold Böcklin and his Isle of the Dead), he examines the position of a sculptor, or rather, of what the term ‘sculptor’ has come to mean in contemporary Croatian society. Sculptor? No more than a cloaked apparition never tired of transferring his work from pillar to post – not knowing where or why. Behind this figure is the bow of a sinking ship (the only part of the ship that is still above water). Death, represented by a crow – put in motion by an electromotor -, is strutting triumphantly. On the broadside, which usually carries the name of the ship, there is a smiley face, an ironic reminder of noble, heroic deaths. (It would be good to remember here that the state institutions provided financing for the presentation of Tomislav Gotovac’s work at the Venice Biennale only a year after his passing, investing into it a sum that the artist could only have hoped for while he was still alive.) The artist’s ghost is steering an inflatable boat. The other traveller is a giant bee with a human head. In its lower hands, the bee is holding its bee head, and gazing at it. Those who have never felt the urge to unscrew their head and toss it around for a while, will never comprehend this scene. It takes a great amount of suffering and persistence to establish this situation as a real-life event. In its upper hands - raised above its head – the bee is holding its trophy - a banana peeling another banana, which, according to the author, is “a workshop description of the absurdity of the act of peeling”. Where is this boat sailing? Put in the words of the Czech artist Ivan Kafka, from nowhere to nowhere. It however doesn’t seem to bother the artist, unwilling to figure out the route. The only thing that is certain is that, in order to continue his voyage into the unknown, he will have to pass between two grand objects (Scylla and Charybdis?) - a giant diamond (symbol of indestructible Utopia?), and the stone of wisdom (symbol of vanity of intellectual exaggerations?), shaped after the polyhedron from Dürer’s Melencolia, Hraste’s installation reminds us that we all have our Scyllae and Chayibdes looming on the horizon. Regardless of the route taken, they show up sooner or later. And the only thing I can think of here - after having walked three times around the building - is yet another quote from Breton’s Manifesto: “It is not the fear of foolishness that compels us to leave the banner of imagination furled”. Toni Horvatić Catalogue for the solo exhibition by Vojin Hraste held at The SC Gallery, Zagreb, April 10 – April 23, 2014