Current exhibitions in Zagreb we plan to see this winter

As the colder days draw closer, I am sure we will all need a little extra motivation to leave the house. Besides meeting up in restaurants, cafes, cinemas, theaters or at advent events, exhibitions stand out as perfect destinations for escaping the everyday winter routine, where a gentle walk and a good conversation allow you to immerse yourself in a world of ideas in an environment that captivates with every step. Whether you go with company or decide to enjoy it on your own, one thing is certain: visiting exhibitions is always a good choice. Not only can you observe how art responds to current social events, I am sure you will also learn something new along the way, and the most beautiful part is that you carry all those impressions with you long after leaving the gallery.

For all the social butterflies who cannot wait for a reason to step out of the comfort of their home, I have selected the most interesting exhibitions in Zagreb worth visiting before the end of the year.

Nora Turato: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! 

Someone very dear to me once gave me a Nora Turato print with the words There is never a way to straighten things out by talking, talking dissolves things, and on the other side Good or bad in various beds. Before I even realized it, Nora had slipped into the walls of my home.

I have been following her work for a while, in which political discourse and pop culture coexist as equals, reflecting the rhythms of social relations and consumer mentality. Her artistic visual language and works inscribed with expressive typography remind us of signs we often see, yet they carry entirely different messages so you will have plenty to look at as well as think about.

As part of the 60th Zagreb Salon, Nora Turato presents Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!, her largest work in a public space in Europe. The installation wraps around a pavilion that is undergoing renovation and each day at noon emits a raw vocal outcry that becomes an unexpected urban ritual. It spatially follows the circular architecture of the pavilion, opening up a series of different visual and auditory experiences.

Where? Meštrovićev paviljon, Zagreb
When?Until January 31, 2026.

Photo: El Hardwick

Isidora Todorić: shes_so_al_pacino.png 

If you want to be in your own film, then Isidora’s new exhibition shes_so_al_pacino.png is the perfect place for it. Imagine entering a gallery that feels like a cinema without a film. There is no projection, no actors, no plot. It is precisely in this unspoken, unformed space that the exhibition begins.

Here you are not just an observer. shes_so_al_pacino.png asks you to approach it as an optical body, someone who moves through the space and edits what they see. If you enjoy art that gently pulls you out of everyday life and shifts you into a different perception, this exhibition is worth visiting. The space is dark, quiet, almost meditative, and you become part of a frame that is trying to take shape. This slowing down, this brief pause from everything, is exactly what we all sometimes need.

Where? Miroslav Kraljević Gallery (10ka space, Šubićeva 29)
When?Until December 4, 2025.

Zoran Šimunović: Daj mi pusu 

If you have recently been looking for an exhibition that can pull you out of the winter grayness and return you to a softer, warmer mental place, Šimunović’s new exhibition Daj mi pusu (Give Me a Kiss) at Klovićevi dvori might be exactly that. Zoran is one of those artists who builds his cycles as small worlds, and in this newest one, freshly opened, hearts enter his painterly universe.

Šimunović is known for his unique blend of abstraction and figuration, which is why his works often feel as if they exist somewhere between dream, memory and reality. Daj mi pusu (Give Me a Kiss) brings a new measure of tenderness, along with the recognizable humor and lightness he manages to sustain in each cycle. The paintings are full of softness, color and rounded forms that seem to want to embrace you. If you are looking for an exhibition that will lift your spirits while offering plenty to reflect on, this is the one. It is one of those shows you enter with your coat and your worries and leave feeling at least a little lighter.

Where? Klovićevi dvori Gallery
When?Until January 11, 2026.

Vrtovi / Gardens, 2025.

Nika Radić: 1/3 

Exhibitions that make you imagine the city as something entirely different from the one we experience every day rarely appear, and Nika Radić’s 1/3 is one of them. Nika has been working with plants for years and here she questions what would happen if nature were once again given more space.

From that encounter comes 1/3, an exhibition that does not use futurism for fantasy alone but instead explores the possibility of living in the city differently, more sustainably and more gently toward the space we share. Known for works that explore perception and communication, Nika now opens another dimension: what Zagreb would look like if nature could breathe freely again. And as you observe imagined urban forests, it is hard not to ask the obvious question: why could this not be possible in reality?

Where?Richter Collection
When?Until February 8, 2026.

Intimno i javno: Lina Crnčić-Virant 

Exhibitions that bring forgotten women out of the shadows always draw attention, and Intimno i javno (Intimate and Public) at the Zagreb City Museum is exactly that. In front of us is the oeuvre of an artist who was present on the Zagreb art scene for decades yet despite her dedicated work was too often pushed aside

Lina co founded the first Women’s Art School in Zagreb and was the longtime president of the Women Artists Club, which in itself was a small manifesto of emancipation in a time that offered women little space. The exhibition also reveals her intimate world. Her oeuvre ranges from portraits and landscapes to Art Nouveau and Symbolist compositions, all connected by a recognizable feminine idiom that today is being reread with great interest. If you enjoy exhibitions that slowly reveal the layers of one personality and restore visibility to artists long kept out of frame, this one will win you over.

Where? Zagreb City Museum, Opatička 20
When?Until January 4, 2026.

Lina Crnčić-Virant

Dear Father 

If you enjoy exhibitions that touch you in silence and leave you thinking long after you leave the gallery, Dear Father is exactly that. Maja Babič Košir, Nevena Aleksovski and Helena Tahir together open up a very intimate yet universal question: what actually remains of a father, as a person, as a figure, as a presence or an absence.

Dear Father is an exhibition about absence that is not empty but densely filled with the unspoken, the unfinished and everything that is inherited without words. Quietly yet powerfully, it reminds us how layered, fragile and important family stories are, even when they seem distant.

Where? TROTOAR, Mesnička 7, Zagreb
When?November 21, 2025 to January 17, 2026.

Dorothy Cross: Kinship / Srodstvo 

The Art Pavilion in Zagreb presents an extravagant cross section of thirty years of work by Irish artist Dorothy Cross. Placed in the Archaeological Museum, among Egyptian artifacts and prehistoric fragments, the exhibition pulses like a time portal connecting our world with distant cultures and lost geographies.

Cross sees art as a possibility of viewing the world in ways it has never been seen before. Her works, including sculptures, installations, photographs, films and operatic interventions, erase the boundaries between the living and the nonliving, the human and the nonhuman, the present moment and geological epochs. These are visual meditations on connection, belonging and the fluidity of existence, imbued with an oceanic feeling, that rare moment in which the entire world feels like one.

Where? Archaeological Museum of the City of Zagreb
When? Until February 1, 2026.

Dorothy Cross

XV Triennial of Croatian Sculpture

If you are curious about what is happening in Croatian sculpture right now, from new materials and bold experiments to a return to classic approaches, the 15th Triennial of Croatian Sculpture at the Museum of Contemporary Art is the ideal place to start. This year the Triennial temporarily leaves its usual home and moves into the museum’s contemporary display, which already brings a small shift in energy.

The Triennial is, perhaps more than any other event, a true panoramic view of three years of sculptural production. It is a moment when you can see in one place how wide ranging, diverse and lively sculpture really is, from classical volumes and installations to new technologies and tactile, almost meditative forms.

In a time when the boundaries between media are becoming increasingly blurred, the Triennial is a reminder that sculpture still has plenty to say. If you want to see where sculpture is heading, what drives it and which new voices are emerging, this is an exhibition worth adding to your list.

Where? Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb
When? Until February 1, 2026.

Mirosław Bałka: PROMISE 

The title of Mirosław Bałka’s exhibition, taken from the second album by Sade, introduces new works by one of the most significant contemporary European sculptors, known for his multidisciplinary practice that merges existentialist figuration, monumental installations and multimedia.

The works are rooted in the principles of arte povera. Modest materials such as coconut doormats and fragments of terrazzo are transformed into sculptures that rise toward the ceiling at sharp angles. They share the same theme: elevating what is everyday and low toward symbolic stars through the literal lifting and transformation of material into an artistic object.

Where? AMZ Gallery, Zagreb
Whene? November 12, 2025 to January 30, 2026.

Photo: Glorija Lizde