The first glance at Kristian Kožul's work of art entitled "The Bride" reveals that the artist's appropriates it to reformulate, historically speaking, a long present form of presenting the human figure-the half-length portrait. This presentation of portrait sculpture has been present in numerous forms with more or less realistic tendencies, in canons belonging to different time periods including the present moment. Its most prominent and continuous feature, notwithstanding manners of presentation, is, by all means, symbolism imbedded in putting a specific figure in a proper position and in its perception in a given social context by its separation and placement on a pedestal, on the elevated position. Moreover, as is the case with monumental sculptures, the pedestal often contains its own autonomous form and is visually subordinated to the main, dominant presentation of what is placed on the pedestal. However, the pedestal itself is still symbolically important because it stresses a connection between what is presented and a specific spatial-temporal context.
In his construction of "The Bride", Kožul used ready-made, industrially manufactured objects, as was the case with his earlier exhibited works. The constructive element - a mannequin - is covered by luxurious accessories typical of the wedding. These have been richly decorated by harmoniously coloured traditional ornaments such as lace, embroidery and pearls in white colour (the colour of virginity) with golden details (the symbol of purity). The face of the bride is covered by identically made and decorated non-transparent mask which is closed with a zip fastener on the level of the mouth whereas all decorations of the physiognomy are intertwined with an enormous number of chains fastened to the pedestal and around the neck with a chain guide. What becomes apparent is that "The Bride" is an unidentified woman whose personality and individual facial features covered by the mask reveal only basic features of already stated historical characteristics of the half-length portrait. Namely, the pedestal is as important as the sculpture and does not function as a subordinated part of the work. Moreover, the pedestal has been formally absorbed into the work by a specific formal treatment of the surface as well as by the equally valuable formulation of the autonomous signifier of a specific artistic idea or a concept (as R. Krauss also identifies in relation to the description of the modern plastic artistic formation ), the symbolism of which extends to the overall presentation. Through restraining the anonymous female figure - local prejudice constructed via visual signs -with the S/M equipment mimicking the equipment typical of the wedding ceremony, the artist speaks about a strong dominance of traditional institutions in his local community, more specifically of the institute of marriage, which, according to Foucault, is at the same time a "private contract" dominated by the power of the male gender, and is thus brought under double control: that of the state apparatus and that of religion. A group of sketches made by precise and thin strokes of the pencil exhibited alongside "The Bride", is rooted in the past, this time in the motifs of Renaissance decorations defined by a more prominent symmetry. Garlands made of intertwined flowers of the lily (virginity) and images of foxes (inhibition, no - freedom) recapitulate the problem contained in the sculpture yet again emphasising the tension coming out of the contrastive elements of the whole work and the static nature of their symmetric relations.
Frequent recycling of the historic and artistic inheritance, with minute workmanship and "strong concentrations imposed on the object as the artistic media", recognizable spectrum of materials, chromatics, and the manner of applying materials pursuant to the principle of addition of several groups of identical elements and its transformation into the whole, create the monumental and visual domination of Kožul's objects that have been exhibited so far. Owing to the stated characteristics, Kožul's oeuvre stood out even in group exhibitions, such as the 7th Triennial of Croatian Sculpture (2003) where his cycle of ready-made works entitled "Discoware", a series of original invalid aids transformed by densely applied small pieces of glass into glamorous "votive objects that exorcise the demons of social reality", attracted attention of experts and broader public alike.
However, despite affirmation of the object as an artistic medium, Kožul's works represent very often the integral part of the artistic ambience which the author, as is the case with "The Bride", seeks to fill in thematically and stylistically with corresponding wall artefacts, i.e. graphics and photographs. In other words, the artist seeks to achieve an inter-media artistic experience around the central focal point. Accordingly, on the exhibition "Gozba" ["The Feast"] (VN Gallery, Zagreb, 2003), by finding his starting point in the motif of food and consumption in real life as well as on the symbolic level, the artist creates from the bones - the remains of the feast - his own interpretation of these objects of religious worship by appropriating traditional forms of the relics thus ironically referring to local and wider materialist (dis)orientation of the society, and links them to the photographs of smiling people from his surroundings made of ceramics resembling the usual portraits of people on gravestones. "Cornucopia" was the title of Kožul's following exhibition held in Miroslav Kraljević Gallery in 2003 where the artist reiterated the problem of dictatorship of materialism and distorted criteria of perceiving social and individual values in one's own community. He made huge ceramic horns of plenty which are, notwithstanding their lavishly elaborated surface, very tightly closed without any available content, and correspond to computer graphics-horror vacui presentations of bacchanalias in front of which, as was the case with his objects, we remain isolated, deprived, reduced to a mere role of voyeurs.
In his series of objects entitled "Tease" (2003) or "Sado mazo" ["Sadomasochism"] (2004), we can detect the author's critique of the inhibition of the individual by traditional social conventions in the field of sexuality, i.e. his artistic interpretation of constitution of the individual via power relations "in which sexuality is not the most inhibited element, but rather one of those elements which have been institutionalised to the highest degree..." .
"One of the most basic impetuses in art which deals with the presence of sexuality in representation is to show the existent transfixed nature of sexual identity as fantasy, and at the same time, to shock, distort visual field in front of our eyes" Therefore, in his cycle "Tease", Kožul reshapes the usual constructive repertoire of sexual fantasies from sex shops (shoes, wigs, articles of clothing) by nails and razors, transforming them into contemporary tools of inquisition, the causes of physical and psychical pain, as is the case with his "Sado-mazo" cycle with miniature torture devices made of black leather and metal applications, transformed children's aids from childhood such as cradles, children's eating tables or cribs.
This unmasking and transformation of commonly found objects which are placed into a new, unexpected context by artistic interventions also cause an intriguing transformation of their initial meanings. Kožul's works can be generally described as artistic comments created on the basis of active observation of specific local socio-cultural phenomena, and also those general social conventions and codes which are today subject if not to total theoretical and practical revision, then at least to critical thinking and more committed (artistic) activity. His works are at the same time a witty game and a repartee of the contemporary moment, open to dialogue, tolerance, reaction, but on no account to indifference.
Željka Himbele