Dino Kužnik, Shaped by the West, Framing the Unframable
September 25–November 22, 2025
Exhibition opening: Thursday, September 25, 2025, at 7 p.m. at Trg zbora odposlancev 72, Kočevje
The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Photon Gallery.
This is the third exhibition in the series IZVOR: KOČEVJE
SHAPED BY THE WEST is a series with which Dino Kužnik began to establish his unique photographic expression. During his travels across the United States between 2016 and 2019, he created a series of images that represent the artist’s view and experience of the so-called promised land. Images of the Western world, which became accessible through films, television, and music after Slovenia’s independence, fascinated him as a child and left a lasting impression on him. After a period of isolation in Yugoslavia, scenes of a different way of life and the goods of the Western world became objects of desire. The dreams of American reality of a growing teenager and the longing for life on the sandy Californian shores, free travel along the long straight roads of the American desert, became deeply ingrained in Dino Kužnik’s consciousness. With this awareness, he set out on a journey that resulted in a series of photographs imbued with a childlike longing for the unattainable, like a backdrop behind which hides a real world that is anything but ideal. At the same time, Dino Kužnik was also engaged in the lengthy and very expensive process of obtaining an artist’s visa to stay in the country. He himself described the creative process: “While the idea of the ‘American dream’ is very appealing, living and working here as a foreign artist is not easy. The series subtly deconstructs the idealized images of the American dream. /…/ Throughout the series, I use the visa application process as a metaphor for the obstacles I faced when trying to live the American dream.”
After graduating from Kočevje High School, Dino Kužnik (1986) enrolled at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering at the University of Ljubljana, where he studied graphic and media techniques, graduating in 2013. Shortly after completing his studies, he traveled to New York. He primarily focuses on personal and commercial photography projects. He presents his work at solo and group exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad. In 2017, he was shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Awards in the landscape photography category. In 2019, he published his first monograph, Shaped by the West, with AINT-BAD (USA). He lives and works in New York.
Curator of the exhibition and author of the text: Nadja Kovačič