Often the placement of a work of art in a specific context  is determined by the givenness of the context itself, impeding the work to be read as an isolated entity, inert to its immediate surrounding. This applies both to factual and symbolic levels of discourse.
The space hosting the latest work by Kažimir Hraste is, however, unique. It is defined by the thick late Classical walls of the original structure of Diocletian’s Palace. That from the beginning the artist was aware of the tremendous input of the chosen site is evident from the fact that he wanted all gallery furnishings to be removed, in order to reveal its naked architectural structure. Thus, by making the Palace’s mighty architecture visible, he also begged the question of the sedimented identities of the city, especially of its historic core, laying foundation for a fruitful dialogue between his work and an architectural heritage that, unlike the usual anesthetized archaeological sites, is a living palimpsest of an eventful history. The city’s historic centre has always attracted Hraste. Witness the ubiquity of his works, from Pirja (Funnel) which, erected on the pavement of Marmontova Street, pays tribute to the spiteful and ironic spirit of Split and the spontaneity of everyday life, to the curly wirework of his doors for the Ethnographic Museum which, deliberately put in contrast to the visual dynamics of their setting, are designed to arouse interest of the passers-by for the realm of museum narratives and the spinning yarn of historicized tales of the city and its surroundings. The late eighties of last century likewise saw the appearance of his works in the historic centre of Split, on different occasions and on a temporary basis. His public installations have always provoked the public, addressing the issue of unmediated encounter of a work of art and a fortuitous passes-by (e.g. In The Teeth Of, 1987; Hand, 1989).
Hraste enters the space of the Kula Gallery with a wooden construction of awe-inspiring dimensions (h. 670 cm, d. 490 cm). The piece does not represent a radical change of direction from his earlier experiences and practices, at least not at the formal aesthetic level, as what we are dealing with here is the same constructivist type of sculptural body known from his previous work. The difference, however, lies in its highly competitive scale by which it fills the gallery space with a presence that imposes different perceptions of the exterior and interior, conveys a sense of subtle derailment from the outside to the inside (and the other way round), and offers a possibility of layered semantic building and metaphoric readings. The result: different levels of spatiality, from the interior space bounded by the solid walls of the gallery, through the interior of the anthropomorphic construction with pass-through walls, to the resonances of the interrelation between the two interiors in the visual and mental “perspectives” of the participating viewer. This is made possible particularly since the constructed head lacks detached and inaccessible hieraticity, functioning purely as the artist’s invitation to the viewer to take an active part in critical reflection on a whole range of possible problems. In other words, this construction is the artist’s call for event.
At this point it would be rewarding to return to the beginning. Intense thinking about the exhibition at the Kula Gallery took Hraste to the part of the human body with which the articulation of his idea is most closely bound. This body part is the head. The history of the artefact from which he takes inspiration for his grandiose construction is equally interesting. The head of a bearded man that motivated Hraste’s sculpture is a recent acquisition of the Archaeological Museum in Split. Its existence was brought to the artist’s attention by the academician Nenad Cambi. The head probably belonged to a now lost statue that made part of the sculptural decoration of the Roman Palace. As the academician Cambi points out in his article “The head of Socrates from the Brangwin Collection in the Archaeological Museum in Split” (Vjesnik za arheologiju i povijest dalmatinsku, 104, 2011), the comparative analysis carried out on the head’s shape and facial features offers sufficient evidence to identify it as one of the Roman versions of the archetypal depiction of Socrates ascribed to Lysippos. The circular trajectory of the head – from Diocletian’s Palace, via Venice, to Sir Frank Brangwyn’s art collection in Great Britain and back to Split as its original “anchorage”, caught Hraste’s imagination. (To spin the yarn further, it could be added that the head at some point served as an anchor, which has been concluded from the metal ring at its back.)
The head’s travel, during which it moved farther and farther away from its place of origin, and its final return to it, as well as the evocative relations of this museumized head with the world of ideas, inspired Hraste to take a creative action during which he incorporated all its lines of force into his work, bringing into it also the nerve of modern times. Namely, his “head” is a living fragment which does not ask for taking distance. On the contrary, it makes it impossible to “stay out”, no matter how much effort one may have put into detouring around it, because the artist’s intention is to draw him inside – to the indiscernible, invisible and uncatchable; by directing the lines of force towards the inside, he encourages incessant questioning and sets mind in motion. Yet the introspection and architecture of thought which this piece implies are literally rooted in the heritage passed down since Socrates, making it possible for the artist’s utterance to be understood as a polygon for multidimensional and permanent cognitive actions.
Yet, there is something strange in the presentation of this work. It concerns its title Cruiser, which seems to be seriously meant and at the same time whimsical, even provocative. It comes as a quite a surprise as the word “cruiser” has recently acquired some rather derogatory undertones. Namely, in the critical field of contemporary reception it connotes the invasion of historic cities by mega-vessels that put ever increasing strain on the environment and the local infrastructure. In the end, it may be the confrontation itself of the artistic form and the title describing it that creates the field of heightened tension with which this work makes possible the actualization of a wide range of fruitful reactions and narrative developments. (text Dalibor Prančević)

Kažimir Hraste was born on February 2, 1954 in Supetar on the island of Brač. He graduated in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, class of Valerije Michieli. In 1984 he completed a postgraduate sculpture course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana (Slovenia), class of Drago Tršar. In 1990, he spent a semester of personal professional development in Rome, on an Italian government scholarship. He has taken part in a large number of collective exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. He has shown individually some thirty times. He is the author of a number of public sculptures. His works are to be found in private collections and public institutions. He has won a number of prizes and commendations for his work. His work has been written about by eminent Croatian art historians and critics. Croatian TV has made and broadcast a documentary film about his work. He is professor of Sculpture at the Arts Academy, and professor of Drawing and Modelling at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture of the University of Split.