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“Views” by Andi Bančić – Photographs of People, Stone and Montraker at the Small Gallery

The exhibition “Views” by Andi Bančić will open at the Small Gallery of the Poreč Open University on Thursday, September 3, 2026, at 8:30 p.m. The exhibition is dedicated to his long-standing relationship with the Montraker quarry, sculpture, and the Montraker International Student Sculpture School in Vrsar.

The exhibition “Views” brings Andi Bančić back to us through what he observed over the years from behind his camera and captured through his lens. His photographs are not merely documentation of a cultural programme, but a personal perspective on people, stone and space: conversations and laughter among participants, portraits and faces caught in motion, sculptors’ concentration at work, guitar playing after a day’s work, stone dust illuminated by sunlight, sculptures in the making, and sweeping views of the quarry, the sea, the islands and the horizon. For Bančić, photography was both documentation and communication – a way of “fixing” his view of the world and returning it to others.

Andi Bančić (1968–2026) was an art teacher, artist, photographer and cultural professional whose professional and personal life was connected for decades with the Poreč Open University and the visual arts scene in Poreč. After graduating from the Faculty of Education in Rijeka, he began his professional career in 1996 at the Poreština Heritage Museum, before continuing his work at the University, where he served as Head of Visual Arts Programmes and later as a professional associate. He participated in the organisation and implementation of numerous exhibitions and visual arts programmes, from Annal and Profutura to Photodistorzija, while also working as a photographer and graphic editor and providing indispensable technical and organisational support to numerous cultural events.

Montraker held a special place in his life. He had been involved with the International Student Sculpture School since its beginnings – first as a student and then, for many years, as its organiser and director. He was a link between students, mentors, stonemasons and stone, a man who knew every corner of the quarry and every stage of the creation of a sculpture. He also left his own sculptural mark at Montraker: his “Waves”, three rounded stone forms with their peaks turned towards the sea, are still part of the quarry landscape today. At the exhibition, we see them through Andi’s eyes, from a low-angle perspective, with one wave seemingly emerging from the photographic frame towards the sea.

The Montraker International Student Sculpture School was founded in 1991, and gained its international character in 1993 with the participation of students from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. In the old Vrsar quarry, students from Croatian and international art academies gain practical experience working in stone with the assistance of mentors and professional stonemasons. Over more than three decades, more than one hundred sculptures have been created and subsequently moved from the quarry into Vrsar’s public spaces – along the waterfront, on beaches, in parks and campsites – creating a kind of open-air gallery. This year’s 36th Montraker International Student Sculpture School is being held from August 31 to September 12, 2026.

For this very reason, “Views” is not simply an exhibition of photographs of Montraker. It is an encounter with a man who was simultaneously its participant, organiser, sculptor, photographer and attentive observer. Bančić’s lens captured what was large and obvious, but even more often what was fleeting: a facial expression, a gesture, the relationship between a body and a piece of stone, a ray of light or a cloud of dust. Through these photographs, the relationship between the person who was looking and us, who are now looking at his photographs, is once again established.

As curator Dr Ivona Orlić writes in the exhibition text: “Bane’s views are still here, both around us and in his photographs, which we now turn our gaze towards, meeting his.”

The exhibition will be open until October 9, 2026, every day except Sundays and public holidays, from 6 to 9 p.m.