Tag: 1977.

Slavomir Drinković, Ab ovo, 1977

Slavomir Drinković
Ab ovo, 1977
polished Swedish granite, steel
12.5 x 23.5 x 23.5 cm
MG-6299

Slavomir Drinković is known as a sculptor of extremely simple forms, tense surfaces, and relationships, often using traditional sculptural materials and their combinations. One of the key themes in his work is a fissure, and thus his knowledge of the method of driving wedges to achieve the direction of a desired crack is one of Drinković’s key shaping methods. The sculpture Ab ovo from 1977 depicts a black granite egg as the beginning of everything, which irreversibly splits open in the middle, revealing the other side of its rich structure. With the title of the sculpture, Drinković refers to an expression taken from Horace’s work De arte poetica, in which he praises Homer for beginning the Iliad with the siege of Troy, and not “ab ovo,” that is, with the birth of the beautiful Helen, who, according to the myth, was born from an egg.
Slavomir Drinković (1951, Jelsa – 2016, Zagreb) was a Croatian sculptor who graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1977 under the mentorship of Valerije Michieli. From 1977 to 1979, he worked as an associate at the Master Workshop of Antun Augustinčić and Ivan Sabolić. Since 1995, he has been working at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb as an associate professor at the Department of Sculpture, assuming the position of a full professor in 2001. He is also the head of the Summer Stone Sculpture Studio at the Academy, as part of which the project Joy was realized. Numerous sculptures by Drinković have been installed in public spaces in Croatia and abroad, among which the sculpture of Marko Marulić in Berlin in 2000, and the memorial of mass graves from the Croatian War of Independence in Vukovar in 1998, deserve special mention. Drinković has also worked as an interior and furniture designer, as well as a theater set designer.

Text: Lorena Šimić, trainee curator of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Đurđica Zanoški Gudlin Lady, 1977

Đurđica Zanoški Gudlin
Lady, 1977
polyester, paint
158.5 x 29 x 48 cm
MG-3988

Đurđica Zanoški Gudlin’s polyester Lady from 1977 is touchingly sad and alone. The old lady is clearly lost in the midst of contemporary society and its drama. The life-size figure performing a mundane spontaneous gesture is clearly wasting away in a grotesque reality to which she does not really belong. As a critical commentary of the time and the world in which she lives, the artist accentuates the human figure exhausted to the point of paradox. In the body of the Lady that is quite obviously withering away, Đurđica Zanoški Gudlin epitomises the criticism and vehement expressivity of the Biafra Art Group, from whose last exhibition in 1978 the sculpture was acquired for the NMMU collection.
In 1975, Đurđica Zanoški Gudlin (Prosenik, 1950) obtained a degree in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in the class of Valerije Michieli, and a year earlier she joined the Biafra Group of artists who worked in the style of New Figuration and opposed all existing visual, cultural and social conventions. The sculptors Stjepan Gračan, Branko Bunić and Ratko Petrić came together spontaneously in 1970, and appropriated the name Biafra, as a symbol of war and famine in that African country, from the abandoned and devastated wing of the student dormitory in the centre of Zagreb where they lived, worked and exhibited as squatters. Until the group disbanded in 1978, Biafra held 15 group exhibitions, and they were later joined by Đurđica Zanoški Gudlin, as well as S. Jančić, I. Lesiak, V. Jakelić, R. Janjić Jobo, Z. Kauzlarić Atač, R. Labaš and E. R. Tanay. In addition to polyester, Đurđica Zanoški Gudlin also modells sculptures in wood and terracotta, and she makes jewellery.

Text: Lada Bošnjak Velagić, museum consultant 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

New Painting XIX, 1977

Dean Jokanović Toumin
New Painting XIX, 1977
oil pastels on canvas
120 x 120 cm
MG-4245

Dean Jokanović Toumin (1946) is an astute nomadic painter, at home both in Zagreb and Milan – who expands the concepts of painting by meticulously planning projects in which he insists on the experience between the execution and perception of the work (paraphrase, B. Perica). He came of age during High Modernism in the 1970s, at the intersection of analytical art and pure plasticity of the medium with the characteristics of a kind of primary geometry. It was a time of cultural turmoil, determined by the echoes of EXAT-51, New Tendencies and the 1968 student protests, which had a formative influence on Toumin. In Postmodernism, in addition to the move towards the passion of painting and the sensibility of painting on the edge of associativity in the 1980s (Infinitely (with love), 1987), he was preoccupied, and continues to be to this day, with ambient and painting installations, as well as the relationships between imagery and spatiality (Line as a Dimension of Space, 2006). He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (Lj. Ivančić, R. Goldoni) in 1970, and he was encouraged to learn the art of looking by prof. Đ. Tiljak who pointed to both Poussin and the Russian avant-garde. He took his first international steps in Milan in the 1970s.
New Painting XIX, 1977, from an eponymous series on an achromatic black surface, emits a minimalist primary geometry made from the canvas format and the pastel-coloured vertical, horizontal and diagonal integrated in a mental, psychological and refined aesthetic visual complex. Jokanović’s visualisations simply look good. He staged and participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad (Zagreb, Milan, New York, Cardiff, Ljubljana, Barcelona…), and he realised art projects under the auspices of the Saõ Paolo Biennial, Juan Mirô Foundation, the Venice Biennale (project and exhibition A Casa/At Home, 1993) and elsewhere. He has received multiple awards for his work. He is a professor at the Arts Academy in Split.

Text: Željko Marciuš, musum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: from the National Museum of Modern Art's archives © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Aleksandar Srnec, (1924-2010) Object 300877, 1977

Aleksandar Srnec
(1924-2010)
Object 300877, 1977
aluminium, chrome, electric motor
MG-3998

Sculptor, painter, graphic artist and designer Aleksandar Srnec graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1949. He also made animated films.
Srnec was one of Croatia’s leading post-WWII protagonists of Abstraction, progressive design and contemporary visual communication. He was a founding member of the EXAT 51 group of painters and architects and an active participant in the New Tendencies, an art movement of European significance which was of incredible importance in Croatia.

Srnec’s artistic expression features radicalised Geometric Abstraction. In the early 1950s, he constructed his first freely composed mobile kinetic objects. In around 1956 he started experimenting with mobile sculptures and reliefs. In 1962 he devoted himself to lumino-kinetic research, and in 1968 to issues of ambience and the production of kinetic sculptures made of different metal with a high polish finish. He also experimented with pure light.

Aleksandar Srnec’s spatial-dynamic light Object 300877 is made of highly polished concave surfaces, which is set in motion by and changes dynamically with the help of an electric motor, which is part of the object’s construction. The rotation of the object creates optical effects that create a sense of dematerialisation of both the object and surrounding space. The object’s surfaces reflect images of surrounding space, and flickers of red and green which are the colours that bent aluminium strips are painted in on the inside as parts of the structure of Object 300877.

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

Frano Šimunović, Abandoning Darkness, 1977

Frano Šimunović
(1908-1995)
Abandoning Darkness, 1977
oil on canvas
110×164 cm
MG-3976

Frano Šimunović (1908-1995) is a classic of pre-WWII Modernism and Gestural Painting of High Modernism. He was the son of writer Dinko Šimunović (1873-1933). In the earlier stages of his career (i.e., 1932-1946), he was extremely socially and critically engaged (e.g., his paintings The Inn of Freedoms from 1936 and A Circus from 1941). He studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in Zagreb until 1934 under Prof. Ljubo Babić and Prof. Jozo Kljaković. In the mid-1930s, he studied in Madrid, where he made copies of both Francisco Goya and Diego Velasquez’s work. Šimunović used to wander around the suburbs of Madrid, thanks to which he ended up deepening his social and expressive affinities in his drawings. He drew scenes from Madrid’s outskirts, cripples and beggars – those at the bottom of the social ladder – underscoring the cruel irony, drama and grotesqueness of life. Šimunović exhibited his works from Spain at his first solo exhibition in Zagreb in 1935. He also painted vedutas of the outskirts of Zagreb and landscapes of the region of Dalmatinska Zagora (Dalmatian Hinterland in translation) in intense colours under the influence of Vincent van Gogh. During WWII, he drew and painted not only refugees and concentration camps, but also circus scenes inspired by Francisco Goya. After WWII, he painted mythical and rugged landscapes of the region of Dalmatian Hinterland: stone fences, boundary walls, piles of stone, polarised between a dark and earthy palette of colours on the one hand, and flickers and glimmers of white on the other. He became permanently preoccupied with this motif. The terrestrial landscape of Šimunović’s Abandoning Darkness painting from 1977 becomes an otherworldly and cosmic, extra-terrestrial landscape. By lighting up the motif, he neared Gestural and Organic Abstraction. Šimunović also did illustration (e.g., for a collection of fairy tales by the Grimm brothers, and D. Šimunović’s short stories). In 1992, he donated a part of his and his wife and sculptor Ksenija Kantoci’s oeuvre to the National Museum of Modern Art. He became a member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1963, and received the 1972 Vladimir Nazor Lifetime Achievement Award given yearly by Croatia’s Ministry of Culture and Media.

Text: Željko Marciuš, 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

Dean Jokanović Toumin, New Painting XIX, 1977

Dean Jokanović Toumin
New Painting XIX, 1977
oil pastels on canvas, 120 x 120 cm
MG-4245

Dean Jokanović Toumin (1946) is an astute nomadic painter, at home both in Zagreb and Milan – who expands the concepts of painting by meticulously planning projects in which he insists on the experience between the execution and perception of the work (paraphrase, B. Perica). He came of age during High Modernism in the 1970s, at the intersection of analytical art and pure plasticity of the medium with the characteristics of a kind of primary geometry. It was a time of cultural turmoil, determined by the echoes of EXAT-51, New Tendencies and the 1968 student protests, which had a formative influence on Toumin. In Postmodernism, in addition to the move towards the passion of painting and the sensibility of painting on the edge of associativity in the 1980s (Infinitely (with love), 1987), he was preoccupied, and continues to be to this day, with ambient and painting installations, as well as the relationships between imagery and spatiality (Line as a Dimension of Space, 2006). He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (Lj. Ivančić, R. Goldoni) in 1970, and he was encouraged to learn the art of looking by prof. Đ. Tiljak who pointed to both Poussin and the Russian avant-garde. He took his first international steps in Milan in the 1970s.
New Painting XIX, 1977, from an eponymous series on an achromatic black surface, emits a minimalist primary geometry made from the canvas format and the pastel-coloured vertical, horizontal and diagonal integrated in a mental, psychological and refined aesthetic visual complex. Jokanović’s visualisations simply look good. He staged and participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad (Zagreb, Milan, New York, Cardiff, Ljubljana, Barcelona…), and he realised art projects under the auspices of the Saõ Paolo Biennial, Juan Mirô Foundation, the Venice Biennale (project and exhibition A Casa/At Home, 1993) and elsewhere. He has received multiple awards for his work. He is a professor at the Arts Academy in Split.

Text: Željko Marciuš, museum consultant 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

Goran Trbuljak, Sava Šumanović’s Palette, 1977

Goran Trbuljak
(1948)
Sava Šumanović’s Palette, 1977
mixed media, 480 x 480 mm
MG-3937

Goran Trbuljak, one of the most prominent Croatian representatives of Conceptual Art, was born in 1948 in Varaždin. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1972. Goran Trbuljak’s entire oeuvre is dedicated to the critique of the art system, whether the objects of his lucid irony are the stereotypical notions about life and work of the male and female artists, museum institutions, art market or something else. His work titled Sava Šumanović’s Palette is a witty commentary on the classification of art, but also one of the few museum objects owned by the National Museum of Modern Art that encompasses events from the period of Conceptual Art in Croatia.

The artwork consists of four scenes, for small “paintings”. Each “painting” consists of a reproduction of a black-and-white photograph depicting the painter’s palette, a wooden board that the painter uses to mix paint during the act of painting. Trbuljak applied several colour tones to each of the reproductions using the tempera technique. Thus, Trbuljak’s four “paintings” consist of a reproduction of one black-and-white photograph and several brush strokes that add not only colour to each of the reproductions, but also the status of an original art object. In the jargon of traditional critics and art historians, the term “palette” did not only mean a wooden board, but it primarily appeared as a substitute for a series of phenomena ranging from descriptions of tonal colour values in a painting (dark and bright palette), to labelling painting styles (Picasso’s blue period, for instance). Since Trbuljak is not a painter, but a conceptual artist and filmmaker, he found a way to, on the one hand, show solidarity with his fellow artist Šumanović, but also to ironically criticize the way art is discussed and the method of its classification, on the other.

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

Đuro Seder, Still Life, 1977

Đuro Seder
Still Life, 1977
tempera on paper
MG-3969

Đuro Seder belongs to the generation of Croatian artists who were supposed to renew modernist artistic principles after World War II. This expectation was strengthened by the official erasure of Socialist Realism from the state cultural policy, which occurred around the time when young Seder was graduating from the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts (first half of the 1950s). The restoration of artistic modernism proceeded in two directions. In the first, we see the renewal of Bauhaus ideas, while the second follows the principles of Abstract Expressionism and the then current philosophy of Existentialism. After becoming a member of the “Gorgona” Group in 1959, Seder was looking to find his artistic path in abstract and monochromatic paintings, which were content with demonstrating their own materiality: the frame, layers of pigment, canvas and the like. Influenced by Existentialism, and subsequently thanks to the contact of group members with Yves Klein, Seder was known to say that he tried, in the paintings from that period, to show emptiness, not only as a metaphor of human life, but as a concrete personal feeling.

“Still Life” stands somewhere between Seder’s Gorgonian phase and its polar opposite, when he gravitated towards expressive painting with suggestions of the human figure, landscape and the like. Variegated colourway, paint applied in thick impasto layers and strong stylisation of the motif have become the main features of his painting since the early 1980s onwards. Realistic motifs are still not recognisable in this “Still Life”, there are no strong, contrasting colours as of yet, the brush stroke is accentuated, but quieted with large colour surfaces. It is clear the Seder has given up on depicting emptiness, but was still searching for a content to fill it.

Text: Klaudio Štefančić, curator of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2022
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2022

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