84 | April• 2018
STRANGE ATTRACTIONS
Each object on display tells a story.
Sometimes it’s very short: a toaster is
accompanied by the words, “When I
moved out, and across the country, I
took the toaster. hat’ll show you. How
are you going to toast anything now?”
Other objects have much longer
talestotell,ofjinxedholidayro-
mances, first loves, office affairs.
he objects themselves are generally
quitemundane(arollingpin,awed-
ding dress), but the stories attached
to them provoke laughter, sadness
and sometimes even shock.
For instance, an axe is accompa-
nied by the story of how a German
woman’s lover left her for another
woman and went on holiday with her.
So the jilted partner bought an axe
and destroyed a piece of her ex-girl-
friend’s furniture each day she was
away. “he more her room illed with
chopped furniture acquiring the look
of my soul, the better I felt,” she wrote.INASMALLGLASSCASEJUSTINSIDE
theentrancetothemuseumisone
object of particular signiicance. It’s
a lufy white toy rabbit accompanied
bythewords:“Thebunnywassup-
posedtotraveltheworldbutnever
got further than Iran.”
It once belonged to the museum’s
founders, artists Olinka Vištica and
Dražen Grubiši ́c. The idea was that
if either of them travelled alone,
theywouldtakethebunnyinplace
oftheirpartner.heybrokeupafter
four years and the bunny took on an-
otherrole–asthefoundingexhibit
intheirideaforatotallynovelkind
of museum.
“Ithinkwewereoneofthosecou-
ples that just run out of fuel,” Vištica
recalls.“Wewerestillyoungandnot
readytosettledown.”Astheirrela-
tionship broke down, they would
have “interminable conversations
late at night about what to do with the
residuesofapastloveafair.”
One“crazy”ideawastosetupa
museum containing all their senti-
mental bric-a-brac. They forgot all
about it until 2006, two years after
theirsplit,whenGrubiši ́cwasconsid-
eringideasforanartshowinZagreb
andherememberedthatcrazyidea.
He gave Vištica a call.
“The idea was to try to create this
space where we could poetically
store all the emotional heritage of COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF BROKEN RELATIONSHIPShis axe from the
Museum of Broken
Relationships has
abizarre tale
to tell