David Maljković’s (1973, Rijeka, Croatia) work is a highly controlled variant exploitation of formalist concerns. While narrative is the driving element at the origination of a project, the artist’s varied means of visual implementation profoundly modifies and compromises its supremacy. The process of construction within a set of formal directives encrypts the narrative and postulates what Maljković describes as a new semantic logic. His overall project is engaged in the variable relationship between form and content in art terms or signifier and signified, in linguistic terms; it is within this relationship that Maljković negotiates his formal methods and disjunctive intentions.
David Maljković was born in Rijeka, Croatia. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Zagreb and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, and is currently based in Zagreb. Among Maljković’s selected solo exhibitions are: The Renaissance Society, Chicago; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Kunstmuseum Sankt Gallen; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead; GAMeC, Bergamo; CAC Vilnius; Sculpture Center, New York; Kunsthalle Basel; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Secession, Vienna; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; Whitechapel, London; CAPC Musee d’art Contemporain, Bordeaux; and MOMA PS1
His work has been exhibited in museums such as Kunsthaus Bregenz; MAXXI Rome; MUSAC Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y Léon, Spain; The Power Plant, Toronto; Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels; and Centre Pompidou, Paris. He has participated in numerous large-scale group shows, including the 11th Gwangju Biennale; 56th Biennale di Venezia; La Triennale, Paris; the 29th Sao Paulo Biennial; 11th and 9th Istanbul Biennial; the 4th Tirana Biennial; and the 5th Berlin Biennale, among others. His works are part of major public collections, such as Centre Pompidou, Paris; MUMOK, Vienna; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; MOMA, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Tate Collection, London.
Works by Maljković are in the collections of internationally renowned museums among which: Centraal Museum, Utrecht, NL; Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR; CA2M Centro de Arte Dos De Mayo, Madrid, ES; Frac des Pays de la Loire, FR; GOMA, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, SCH; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, FR; Ludwig Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, HU; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, ES; MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL; Tate Collection, London, UK; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, NL.