Hrvoje Slovenc

About

Croatian, b. 1976   —   I am a Croatian photographer based in New York. After earning an MS in Biochemistry from University of Zagreb, Croatia, I moved to NYC. In 2010, I earned an MFA in Photography from Yale University School of Art. My work is in permanent collections at Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, as well as Museum of Contemporary Art and Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb, Croatia. 
 Born in a country that no longer exists and was ravaged by war, having a passport from another, and living in a third, my work explores the tension between identification and alienation. In my previous body of work, Marble Hill, I use different visual languages to present daily life as a hyperreal, scripted construct. Marble Hill is a real neighborhood in the Bronx where I live. The name also evokes a fantastical place reminiscent of a fairy tale. In this world, domestic spaces look like stage sets and intimate relationships are mere illusions created for a camera. Even moments of great tragedy appear to be theatrical. In my newest work, Croatian Rhapsody: Borderlands, I point my lens back to my home country. With this unusual album, a serial portrait that consists of images and text, I attempt to re-analyze, re-discover and re-map my home country of Croatia, which I left sixteen years ago.  
 Selected exhibitions include Relative Closeness: Portraits of Family and Friends, Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, USA; Past is Now, Munich City Museum in Munich, Germany; Marble Hill, Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia; New Media, Sex, and Culture in the 21st Century, Museum of New Art in Detroit, USA; New Acquisitions 2003-2013, Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb, Croatia; Biennial 2011, the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York, USA; and Young Artists' Biennial in Bucharest, Romania.