Caput Mortuum

2010

Medium:
Metal construction, water, textile
150 × 400 × 400 cm
(Textile with iron oxide impression 1150 × 450 cm; crystallized iron oxide print 15 × 15 cm)

Installation view:
Caput Mortuum, SC Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia, 2010

Work Description:
Caput Mortuum unfolds as a site-specific installation developed for the atrium of the Italian Pavilion (Theatre &TD) within the Student Centre complex in Zagreb. At its core, the work resurrects a long-disused modernist fountain, turning its industrial relic into a stage for reflection on decay, transformation, and time.

Vujičić wrapped the entire structure—its iron piping, circular basin, and concrete base—in a monumental white cotton textile. Through a slow process of oxidation, water dripping from the suspended iron ring imprinted the fabric with stains of rust and crystallized iron oxide (Fe₂O₃). These marks, left to form autonomously, became drawings produced by the passage of water, air, and time. The transformation of pure white into blood-red hues alludes to both the material alchemy of pigments and the spiritual symbolism of corrosion.

The title, Caput mortuum (Latin for “dead head”), refers to the alchemical residue left after chemical transmutation—a pigment once called rosso veneziano or mummy brown, historically derived from decomposed organic matter. In this sense, Vujičić’s installation functions as both process and allegory: a meditation on matter’s decay and art’s persistence, an emblem of mortality turned into aesthetic and metaphysical form.

As the iron stains consume the fabric over time, the work enacts its own disappearance, embodying melancholy as both subject and method. What remains is not an image, but a trace—an emblem of entropy and remembrance.

Photo credits:
Studio Silvio Vujičić