Ivana Franke (born 21 December 1973) is a Croatian contemporary visual artist who currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
She uses light, space and transparent materials to create immersive installations and spatial drawings that appear ephemeral, elusive, fragile and intangible, and ultimately confront people with the limits of their perception.
Education and artistic career
Ivana Franke was born in Zagreb, Croatia, at the time it was part of the former Yugoslavia. She graduated at the School of Contemporary Dance and Rhythmics and Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, 1992–1997, under Professor Miroslav Šutej, a member of the New Tendencies, the neo-avant garde movement that influenced her work. In 2001-2002 she participated in the fellowship program of the Center for Contemporary Art Kitakyushu, Japan. In 2004 she was a fellow of the Nordic Institut for Contemporary Art (NIFCA) in Helsinki. In 2009-2010 she was a grantee of the Institut für Raumexperimente and in 2014 she was a resident of ISGM, Gardner Museum in Boston.
In June 2024 she was elected associate member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Her first solo exhibition took place in Nova Gallery in Zagreb in 1997. She received wider recognition in New York MoMA P.S.1 2001 special project program with her ephemeral installation Full Empty Space. In 2007 Franke represented Croatia at the 52nd Venice Biennale with the multi-part site-specific exhibition Latency in Palazzo Querini Stampalia.
Her large scale installations have been featured in many other international biennials, such as kinetic installation Frameworks at 9th Venice Biennale of Architecture, 2004, site-specific installation Liminal Level, 2008 in Manifesta 7Manifesta 7: Index. The Rest of now. Edited by Adam Budak, Anselm Franke, Hila Peleg, Raqs Media Collective: Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta. Exhibition catalogue, p.73. Trentino, South Tyrol: The European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Bolzano, 2008. Milano: Silvana Editoriale, 2008. in Bolzano, architectural installation Disorientation Station at 11th Shanghai Biennale in 2016 and Resonance of the Unforeseen in 2020 at 9th Yokohama Triennale, among others.22nd International Biennial of Graphic Art Ljubljana, International Centre for Graphic Arts (MGLC), Narodni Muzej Ljubljana, Ljubljana, 27 June – 30 September 1997. Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and Mediterranean, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, 1 July – 30 September 1997 / Visioni di Futuro / Vision d'Avenir. Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and Mediterranean, Castelvecchi, Rome, 1999 / Dietro, c'e la passione, XII Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and Mediterranean, Castel Sant'Elmo, Naples, 19 September – 15 October 2005.
Work
Ivana Franke's practice is driven by philosophical questionsCanales, Jimena. Ivana Franke. Retreat into Darkness. Towards a Phenomenology of the Unknown. Edited by Heike Catherina Mertens, Katia Naie. Spector Books, Leipzig, 2018. . about the nature of reality, about the relationship between appearances - subjective experience of how things manifest in our perception and thought, in phenomenal consciousness - and materiality - how things are according to physics or science in general -. She builds complex geometric structures/sculptures often employing transparent materials. By sophisticated use of light and space she modulates their appearance and devises situations that address visual and spatial perception to 'question their epistemological power'.Mance, Ivana, "Ivana Franke: Extra Dimenzije. Jeste li unutra ili vani?" Exhibition Catalogue. Edited by Ana Petković Basletić. The Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2019.
In her immersive time-based light installations, the materiality of geometric sculptures is often negated and sometimes those constructions are made completely invisible. Instead, those structures serve as a background, a three-dimensional screen for rendering and reflecting light, hosting secondary perceptual "objects", made of light reflections, which as such do not exist, but are inferred in the mind of the observer.Seth, Anil K. "Controlled Hallucinations and the Phenomenology of Presence. In Ivana Franke. Retreat into Darkness. Towards a Phenomenology of the Unknown. Edited by Heike Catherina Mertens, Katia Naie. Spector Books, Leipzig, 2018. Spector Books, . Animated Sphere,Experiment Marathon: Hans Ulrich Obrist & Olafur Eliasson, p. 86-87. Edited by Emma Ridgway. London: Serpentine Gallery, 2009. Reykjavik: Reykjavik Art Museum, 2009. Koenig Books, . 2008, a geodesic sphere interwoven with more than four thousands of thin lines of monofilament is illuminated by tiny incandescent bulb which reflects itself on each of those thousands of lines, but does not shed enough light to make the spherical construction visible. Those constellations of reflected light dots, immaterial objects and fleeting phenomena are animated by the observer, move with him/her; they are experienced as ultimately subjective, transient, elusive, fragile and intangible.Agudio, Elena. "Retreat into Darkness. Towards a Phenomenology of the Unknown. On Disorientation, Epistemological Rupture, and Non-Knowledge". In Ivana Franke. Retreat into Darkness. Towards a Phenomenology of the Unknown. Edited by Heike Catherina Mertens, Katia Naie. Spector Books, Leipzig, 2018. Spector Books, .Agudio, Elena. "Fugaci lucciole nella nostra mente: Ivana Franke", p. 30-35. Art e dossier, no. 341, March 2017.
Full Empty Space, 2001
In tradition of light and space artists, Ivana Franke uses light and light reflections to transform architectural elements in all-encompassing light installations, however her artistic practice differs crucially from that of Turrell or Eliasson, for example, in that she attaches so much importance to her "via negativa", that is, the possibility of defining the meaning of the work as a function of the non-existent.Olofsson, Anders. "Galleri Niklas Belenius, Stockholm: Ivana Franke", Konsten, 10 February 2009.
In her installation Full Empty Space in MoMA PS1 in New York, 2001, she has filled almost an entire room with fishing line and adhesive tape suspended to form structures with three x,y,z axes, the multiple origins of Cartesian lines that start forming space but never define it completely. With those dematerialised, almost invisible structures, she points to the "materiality" of spatial emptiness and light. A visitor is invited to enter the room, but the fragility and invisibility of the structure questions the mere ability to control space that we easily take for granted. In her following installation Prostor, 2003, in Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, the ambience was created by measuring and multiplying a multitude of spatial units drawn in space with threads of transparent fishing line stretched over the three walls of the room, so that the entrance itself was blocked for the visitor and opened only to take over the screen function. However, the paradox is that the network exists, since we have already mentioned it as a tangible obstacle, but it is at no point as such fully visible. Light, which implies the possibility of a visual representation of the world, is not rendered by transparent threads of fishing lines, and almost completely dematerializes white space, making it intangible and invisible.Golub, Marko. "PROSTOR Ivana Franke". Radio 101, 2003
Latency, 2007
In 2007 Ivana Franke represented Croatia at the 9th Venice Biennale with multi-part architecture-related exhibition Latency situated in the Area Scarpa of Pallazo Querini Stampalia. In the central installation Latency (Sala Luzzato) she covered walls and the floor with transparent glossy acryl glass which enabled the daylight, garden and the water to enter the space in the form of reflected unstable images, while the actual Scarpa's architecture remained visible in the background. Remaining three rooms were deprived of daylight and transformed into something evading and fragile – something that ultimately eludes the pragmatism of early modernism.
With the similar intention of "moving into a historical location, and uncovering its invisible dimension",Ivana Franke, Latency. Croatian Pavilion, 52nd International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Area Carlo Scarpa, Palazzo Querini Stampalia, Venice. Exhibition catalogue. Text by Željko Kipke, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, 2007. Franke's installation Entanglement is a Fragile State, 2012, a geometric structure, a woven linear wall made of semi transparent rope catching light from the windows in the Saint-Nicolas church in Caen in France, reveals the geometry and metaphysical significance of the late Romanesque architecture.
In Infinite Threshold, 2017, she installed a glossy foil on the floor of the Hamburger Bahnhof museum in Berlin, reflecting the light and images coming through the windows at the entrance of the space, which originally was the threshold to a train station.
Seeing with Eyes Closed, 2011-
Seeing with Eyes Closed is an ongoing project dealing with quasi-hallucinatory flow of images behind user's closed eyes by stroboscopic light. Phenomena widely researched in neuroscience since beginning of 20th century and used for diagnosing photosensitive epilepsy, where Franke, an epileptic patient, first encountered it, as well used in art - Brion Gysin's Dreamachine. Fascinated by the character of the experience and the possibility of creating an artwork directly in the mind of the observer, Ivana Franke developed a series of installations of different spatial organisation and "internal movies" devised by programming flicker frequencies in sequences of different durations and customising lights.
Seeing with Eyes Closed, 2011, the first installation in the series is a curved object with screen of lights, in front of which the visitor sits on the cushion, and engages in an introvert, meditative individual experience. It has been widely shown internationally.Absence of Self exhibition, Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh, 23 January – 5 April 2015. "Seeing with Eyes Closed" exhibition, Max Planck Science Gallery, Berlin, 2 January – 13 October 2013. "Seeing with Eyes Closed" exhibition, AoN, Deutsche Guggenheim, Deutsche Bank, Berlin, 23–25 March 2012. "Waking Background" exhibition, Lauba, Zagreb, 14 February – 13 March 2012. Interstices, Festival International Intermedia, Caen, 24–28 April 2012. Electric Shadows, Kontraste Festival, Krems, 12–14 October 2012. The Dark Universe, Sonic Acts, New Art Space Amsterdam NASA, Sonic Arts, Amsterdam, 13 January – 24 February 2013.
We close our eyes and see a flock of birds, 2013, commissioned by MONA and Sharjah Art Foundation, which accommodates five people at the same time offers a possibility of sharing experience with others, and primes the visitors with its title."Eternity", a conference with practical instructions for hallucination, A project by Mobile Academy Berlin, Haus der Wissenschaft, Braunschweig, 24 April 2015. Festival of Future Nows, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 30 October – 1 November 2014. "I Look to You and I See Nothing" exhibition, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, 15 November 2013 - 16 February 2014. "Beam in Thine Own Eye" exhibition, Museum of Old and New Art (MoNA), Hobart, 14–28 June 2013. Perceptual Drift (Galaxies in Mind), Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, 6 July – 20 August 2017.
Disorientation Station (White), 2016, commissioned by the Shanghai Biennale is a large circular room with stroboscopic light wall accommodating larger number of people at the same time.
Retreat into Darkness. Towards a Phenomenology of the Unknown, 2017