Ante Rašić
(1953)
Awakening, 1984
sheet metal, wire
MG-4274

Ante Rašić graduated in painting in 1977 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (under Professor Nikola Reiser). He worked as an associate at Ljubo Ivančić’s Master Workshop in Zagreb (1977-1978) and at Michel Charpentier’s sculpture studio in Paris (1978-1979). He is one of the founding members of the first Permanent Collective of Freelance Artists called ArTresor (1986) and co-founder of Oris, a magazine for architecture and culture of living (1998). He was the prestigious Rašić Design Studio’s longstanding Creative Director, where he did graphic, industrial and spatial design. He has been teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb since 1995.

Rašić created a wide oeuvre of Primary, Procedural and Conceptual Art using unconventional sculpture methods and techniques featuring original interpretations. His early works are close to the ideas of Arte Povera, Op and Kinetic Art, while his later works include constructivist pieces and ambient installations of dynamic rhythms and associations, all imbued with existentialist reflections.

Ante Rašić’s Awakening sculpture from 1984 is made up of several coarse and roughly cut geometric elements, whose distinctive shapes are assembled roughly. At one end of the Awakening’s base – which is shaped like an arrowhead or signpost cut irregularly from sheet metal – a rectangle representing concentrated weight is positioned. Acting as a counterweight at the other end of the base, an upright flagpole rises high with a swaying flag on top.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Ana Janković
Photo: Stanko Vrtarić © Stanko Vrtarić