Tag: 1975.

Miro Vuco, Black Man, 1975

Miro Vuco
Black Man, 1975
polyester, paint
200 x 75 x 77 cm
MG-3994

With his Black Man executed in polyester from 1975, Miro Vuco problematises reality and opposes fashionable abstract art trends. The figure of a worn-out and dark man is frighteningly objective and life-like. From the dominant formalism during the 1970s, Vuco turns to Art Brut. As one of the founders of the Biafra Group, he expresses himself in a dramatic and expressive manner, he is openly rebellious and actively opposes the generally accepted aestheticizing function of art.
In 1969, Miro Vuco (Vojnić Sinjski, 1941) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, where he has been teaching since 1986. After completing his postgraduate studies in Antun Augustinčić’s Master Workshop (1969 – 71), in 1970, he founded the Art Group (Atelier) Biafra, with sculptors Stjepan Gračan, Branko Bunić and Ratko Petrić.
Working in the style of New Figuration, they fought against social ills, established aesthetic norms and the dominant abstract idiom. They appropriated the name of the African country, devastated by war and famine, from the abandoned and devastated wing of the student dormitory in the centre of Zagreb where they lived, worked and exhibited as squatters. In protest against all authority and especially the government, they staged group exhibitions until 1978. Vuco later often combined elements of graphic art and painting, and since 1980 he has been making reliefs in polyester in the spirit of figurative Art Informel. In addition to his permanent commitment to socially provocative themes, Vuco also executed numerous portrait public monuments (Tin Ujević, Zagreb; Ante Starčević, Osijek; Franjo Tuđman, Knin).

Text : Lada Bošnjak Velagić, senior curator of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić

Image:"Black man" by Miro Vuco from the holdings of National Museum of Modern Art in the NMMU "One World" collection display at the Providur's Palace in Zadar / Photo: Goran Vranić, © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Raul Goldoni, An Animal Skull with a Horn, 1975

Raul Goldoni
(1919-1983)
An Animal Skull with a Horn, 1975
bronze
MG-4087

Croatian painter, graphic artist and sculptor Raul Goldoni graduated in painting in 1942 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb under Prof. Marino Tartaglia, and continued his studies in 1942-1943 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. He was also active in product and interior design.

In the 1960s Goldoni committed himself permanently to plastic mediums. He created series of glass objects for everyday use. As far as sculpture is concerned, he modelled free forms, rounded organic forms and figurative compositions which allude to crystallised animal and human figures. In his glass sculptures, he excelled in the purity and stability of form, and deliberately intervened in the interior of the mass of glass, the result of which are works that attract attention and interest not only by the rhythm and balance of their masses, but also by their intrinsic properties, such as transparency and reflection. By having carefully treated the surface of the volume of his glass sculptures, Goldoni filtered and regulated the flow of light through the depths of glass, the result of which is a powerful connection between his sculptures and space.

Goldoni was also successful in applying his personal sculptural poetics to sculptures he modelled in bronze. In other words, he achieved the same dynamism of light between the core and the edges of his sculptures in bronze as he did in his glass sculptures. A good example of this is his An Animal Skull with a Horn bronze sculpture from 1975.

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

Drago Trumbetaš, On Sunday Afternoon, 1975

Drago Trumbetaš
On Sunday Afternoon, 1975
print, offset
MG-7047

The experience of working in the Federal Republic of Germany had a decisive influence on the artistic work of Dragutin Trumbetaš, a self-taught painter from Velika Gorica near Zagreb. Until 1966, he worked in publishing in Zagreb, and his knowledge of different printing techniques will be of great help later in his career. His preferred mode of expression was drawing, and he depicted everyday life of workers and people from the lower social classes. Unlike the artists from the “Zemlja” Group, who were equally devoted to both rural and urban social problems in the interwar period, Trumbetaš focused almost entirely on the metropolitan working class. Having spent time as a Gastarbeiter (migrant worker) in the Federal Republic of Germany, a country at the peak of its economic development in the 1970s, Trumbetaš was able to witness first-hand how difficult life was for workers from Eastern Europe.

What we immediately notice in the print “On Sunday Afternoon”, besides the linear drawing style, is Trumbetaš’s attention to detail. He not only rendered the human figures – their clothes, shoes, hairstyles etc. – and the city streets and buildings where the action takes place – according to all the rules of artistic Realism, but also details that are not essential for the action, such as the advertisements. As long as the artist’s eye and hand allowed him to do so, he would render the products and their ads in minute detail. When it was no longer possible to get into the details of the scene, because of the restrictions of the medium, Trumbetaš would switch to a new drawing or print. By depicting the working class in German urban centres, Trumbetaš portrayed the flipside of a prosperous society during the historical zenith of European industrial capitalism.

Text: Klaudio Štefančić, curator of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb