DAVID WILHELM
PRESENCE, UNKNOWN: PHASE V
7.-28.4.2026.
KARAS GALLERY

On Tuesday, 7th of April David Wilhelm opens his solo exhibition entitled PRESENCE, UNKNOWN: PHASE V at 7 pm in Karas Gallery (Ulica kralja Zvonimira 58).

In her foreword Iva Jurić emphasizes:
In the work PRESENCE, UNKNOWN: PHASE V, artist David Wilhelm continues to explore ritual and apotropaic practices, examining their physical and digital potential within a contemporary context through a series of iterative developments. Starting from their traditional function as protection against evil and misfortune, the artist relocates these practices into a speculative space situated between archaeology, fiction, and the digital imaginary. (…)
The installation combines video with a series of phallus-shaped amulets made of red clay. The amulets appear as pseudo-historical objects without a clearly defined provenance, simultaneously archaic and timeless. Their materiality evokes tradition—specifically archaic techniques of making and archaeological remains—while the context of the installation situates them within a speculative narrative that the artist develops in parallel in the video. Their spatial arrangement suggests that they belong to a broader, yet unfinished system of belief.

PREFACE

Biography:
David Wilhelm (2000) studies at the Department of Animated Film and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb. In their artistic practice they explore the relationship between the digital and the physical, queer identity, and experimentation with sound, text, and video. Most of their time is spent playing video games or working on scaffolding at building restoration sites.
They exhibited their work in group exhibitions in Vienna, Pula, Split, Zadar and Zagreb, as well as solo exhibitions in Split and Zagreb. They participated in residencies Garden of Eden in Bale (2022), What’s Masc? in Berlin (2022) and W/ri/gh/ting Archives through Artistic Research – Co_Lab #1 in Split (2023).

The exhibition will be open during the period from 7. to 28.4.2026.

Working hours of Karas Gallery
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 4pm – 8pm
Tuesday, Saturday 10am – 1pm
On Sundays and Mondays closed.
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http://karasarthub.eu
Organizer: HDLU
With the support of: Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb