2019
Denis Butorac,
Epistle
Marina Viculin Award 2019 was awarded to Denis Butorac for the project Epistle, presented at ADU Gallery f8 in Zagreb.
Jury: Lea Vene (art historian and curator), Sandra Vitaljić (photographer and professor at the Academy of Dramatic Art, Zagreb), Marina Paulenka (photographer and artistic director of Unseen, Amsterdam), Leonida Kovač (art historian and curator), Miha Colner (independent curator and art critic), Emma Bowkett (photography director of Financial Times FT Weekend Magazine).Growing up in a conservative environment often entails carrying the burden of existing outside socially accepted norms. In his exhibition Poslanica (Epistle), Denis Butorac uses photography and ready-made objects to articulate a personal confrontation with family tradition and a departure from the gender role assigned to him.
Conceived as his graduation project, the exhibition functions as both documentation and reconstruction of the artist’s life. Each photograph and object drawn from his childhood represents a fragment of memory. Raised in a predominantly male family that preserves relics from the 1990s war, Butorac recontextualizes these inherited symbols—such as carefully preserved bullet casings—within his own process of self-definition. Removed from their original meaning, these objects become markers of a masculinity he no longer identifies with, prompting questions about the pressures of machismo and inherited identity.
Through the juxtaposition of intimate, traditionally “feminine” elements with overtly militaristic, “masculine” motifs, the work addresses the tension between personal identity and social expectation. This conflict is further underscored by references to familial roles, such as an open page from a coloring book that reflects the expectations placed upon the artist as the eldest son—to assume the patriarchal role of provider and embody a conventional model of masculinity.
Butorac’s photographic series extends into performative self-representation, through which he reflects on both family memory and his emancipation from it. Images of diary pages serve as personal archives, evidencing a desire to break cycles of inherited masculinity. In self-portraits, the artist adopts appearances—an earring, a mohawk, piercings—that he once suppressed, alongside moments of vulnerability, such as crying, previously concealed in childhood. These gestures mark a decisive rejection of imposed norms and the constraints of toxic masculinity.
Religious iconography plays a significant role in the visual language of the work. Motifs such as tears, the cross, and references to martyrdom evoke parallels with Andrea Mantegna’s depiction of Saint Sebastian, positioning the artist as a figure of suffering and resistance. By assuming the pose of the wounded saint, Butorac symbolically articulates endurance and the possibility of overcoming deeply ingrained structures of injustice.
The title Poslanica (Epistle) is thus particularly resonant. Beyond its religious connotations, it denotes a public letter—an intimate yet declarative form of address. In this sense, the exhibition operates as a personal statement: a visual letter through which the artist articulates his process of emancipation from familial and societal expectations, using photography and objects as its primary language.
Text: Leopold Rupnik
Denis Butorac was born in 1992, Croatia. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in Cinematography and is currently a graduate student at the Department of Photography at the Academy of Dramatic Art. In his artwork, photography is used as a medium for exploration of topics such as identity, family and tradition, thus building his own narrative series in which he combines documentary and conceptual.