Love lost, exhibit gained
Broken relationships museum pays tribute to breakups,
The debris trailing collapsed romances typically includes broken hearts and a bitter aftertaste.
But you get more than metaphors at the Museum of Broken Relationships, created by two Croatian artists who began assembling their collection from remnants of failed relationships — theirs and their friends’ — after their own union’s collapse in 2003.
Their provocative and unique collection, now permanently located in Croatia’s capital, has been exhibited around the world. Negotiations are underway to include Canada in that mix sometime in 2014.
The collection of roughly 1,100 items, including two from Canadians, includes an axe that was used by a German woman to systematically chop to pieces every piece of furniture owned by her former livein lover while the latter was on holidays with a new flame.
There are also shoes, bikes, candy panties, wedding dresses and wedding photos, love letters, a mirror shattered into tiny pieces and placed in a glass container, handcuffs, unused condoms, airsickness bags and a broken garden gnome.
Each has notes attached from the anonymous contributors that are alternately cynical and melancholic.
Next to a can of “love incense” is the comment: “Doesn’t work.” The owner of a garter belt wrote: “I never put them on. The relationship might have lasted longer if I had.”
There is a touching love letter written by a 13-year-old boy to a girl he exchanged glances with while their families were escaping Sarajevo in 1992 during the Balkan conflict after Yugoslavia broke apart. He never saw her again.
The artists, Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic, decided to assemble the collection after their fouryear relationship ended in 2003. The travelling exhibit was launched three years later.
The often emotionally exhaustive tour of the museum ends at a gift shop that is delightfully tasteful and humorous, with plain white T-shirts featuring a tiny Band-Aid design over the heart area. My favourite is a pillow set for two that can easily be separated by a handy zipper.
The Museum of Broken Relationships has been a remarkable success, touring in 17 countries since its launch, with stops in London, Cape Town, Berlin, Istanbul, San Francisco, and most recently, Taipei. In 2011, it was named Europe’s most innovative museum, and if negotiations are successful it will make its Canadian debut in Winnipeg some time next year.