To mark his leave from this world with his close ones, Josip Vaništa chose a symbolic return to the historic šira Salon. The exhibition, by his own choosing, titled In memoriam, does not gather art works but a few thoughts and objects, chosen signs which highlight just his absence, his stop, his death, which we as his companions, acquaintances, admirers, feel deeply. Throughout his life, Vanita decidedly handled the absence, to creatively deny it, he dealt with the whiteness to cancel the blackness, he left marks for him to later erase. Painter, drawer, and writer, he strived for a work, but the artist and the person came into himself also in actions, which are, we dare to say, already became works as well. It is hard for us to deal with the thought that a line drawn over life of a creator who dragged the silver line towards infinity, but the loss of Josip Vanita we look onto with maximal claims.
Tonko Maroević
