Museum of Contemporary Art of Istria – Pula

Museum of Contemporary Art of Istria, Pula

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Istria in Pula was founded in 2008, when it was also registered, on the initiative of the Istria County. The Museum still does not have its own museum building, but instead uses premises adapted for gallery purposes in Pula's Old Printing House, at Svetog Ivana 1, in Pula, which was granted to the Museum for use for 10 years by the City of Pula through the Agreement on the Use of the Old Printing House of 1 June 2011.

A new museum building is planned to open by 2020, on the attractive location of Kaštel, in the strictest historical core of the town. The new building, which would house the Museum of Contemporary Art of Istria, would itself represent a monument of contemporary architecture, and would serve as a representative example of the successful interpolation of new architectural fabric into the old urban core.

The task of the Museum of Contemporary Art is to carry out museum and gallery activities, which means systematically collecting, preserving, exhibiting, documenting and processing material, and presenting primarily contemporary visual arts in all their manifestations.

In order to fulfil the legal regulations necessary for the founding of the Museum, Istria County attached its former holdings of 87 works by contemporary Istrian artists to the initial holdings of the MSUI/MACI – thereby fulfilling the condition necessary for the founding of the Museum. This is a valuable collection, which also proved its worth as the basis for founding the new museum. Today the holdings number over 520 inventory items. In keeping with its vocation, the Museum carefully and diligently collects works of art created in the second half of the last century, right up to the newest works by recent artists, but according to strictly defined criteria. These are works that are paradigmatic, or are yet to become so, and works that are important for the development of contemporary art in Istria, Croatia and this part of Europe. The value and importance of these works is decided by the Committee for the Acquisition of Artworks.

So far, four collections have been formed: the Contemporary Art Collection, the Foreign Art Collection, the Design and Poster Collection, and the Photography, Film and Video Collection.

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Istria is not a museum of a closed, regional type, but rather an institution that serves as a meeting place for multiculturalism, which is also confirmed by the permanent exhibition of artists from all over the world, as well as the acquisition of their works. Nevertheless, above all, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Istria should be the umbrella cultural and artistic institution of Istrian artists, and it is realistic for its collections to be based precisely on their works, but also on the works of those artists who temporarily or occasionally work or exhibit in the area of the Istrian peninsula.

Special feature of the museum: the location and building of the Old Printing House, which, from the remnant of an Austro-Hungarian barracks and former industrial building, is being given character through dynamic activity, but also through the ambition to be carefully redesigned architecturally, while respecting its heritage features, so that it becomes a representative palace of contemporary visual art, for which the conceptual design has already been completed.