Sculptor Ivan Kožarić was a leading figure of contemporary Croatian art for more than six decades, and who repeatedly defied convention through playful, sometimes challenging encounters in public space. His work was inspired by modernist style but eluded formalist descriptions. Kožarić’s pursuit of a range of different expressive approaches, and, more broadly, artistic freedom, led him to found the avant-garde Gorgona Group, active from 1959 to 1966. Kožarić’s work has been part of important exhibitions and is held in public and private collections in the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Paris; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Calvert 22, London; Centre for Art and Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe; Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; National Museum of China, Beijing; Venice Biennale; São Paulo Biennale; and documenta, Kassel. Since 2007, Ivan Kožarić’s studio, which includes more than 6,000 artworks, is on permanent display at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb.

The work of Ivan Kožarić—by turns anachronistic, contemporary, and even ahead of its time—can be summed up very precisely as "anarchic discontinuity." The work Let's break the frames establishes a tension between the frame and the canvas and, perhaps more clearly, between painting and object. The damage to the frame causes the canvas to wrinkle, giving the impression that a struggle is ensuing between canvas and frame, until finally the frame cracks. By tearing the frame, the canvas is released from its two-dimensional nature. In this work, there is a special affinity between the rawness of the surface and the primal nature of the painting itself. Destruction and creation are linked in these works, since the same gesture that prevents the canvas from being a pictorial vehicle also opens up its sculptural possibilities.