Tag: Miroslav Šutej

Miroslav Šutej, Print, 1974

Miroslav Šutej
Print, 1974
ink on paper; watercolour
665 x 780 mm
MG-3380-2

Miroslav Šutej graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1961, in the class of Marijan Detoni. He was a member of K. Hegedušić’s Master Workshop and subsequently became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in both Zagreb and Široki Brijeg. While initially formed in the tradition of Op art, he later expanded his work to include vibrant collages and picto-drawings, drawing inspiration from popular and folk culture.
The Print, created using ink and watercolour techniques, consists of several colouristically marked objects connected to paper, allowing them to be moved. Sections of the drawing can rotate 360 degrees around their axes, crossing the edges of the artwork and continuously forming new shapes. In doing so, Šutej produces an open work, a concept introduced by Umberto Eco, which aims to blur the lines between the artist and the observer. By interacting with and modifying the artwork, the observer transitions from a passive recipient to an active creator, developing a new piece that the artist has only suggested, thereby leaving the potential for its creation open.

Text: Filip Kučeković curator intern at the National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Miroslav Šutej, Ultra A, 1965

Miroslav Šutej
(1936-2005)
Ultra A, 1965
wall paint on wood
220x121.5x20 cm
MG-2592

Miroslav Šutej (1936-2005) was one of the most visionary Croatian painters, graphic and ambience artists of High Modernism and Postmodernism. His Ultra A painting-object from 1965 is an example of Optical Art, a modernist movement featuring optical and hypnotic traits that trick the human eye. Šutej built Ultra A’s black and white elegance by multiplying and bulging positives and negatives of his distinctive signature sign. The painting is a combination of science and art typical of the positivist and modernist New Tendencies international art movement (Zagreb, 1961-1973). Šutej graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1961 under Prof. Marijan Detoni and worked as an associate at painter Krsto Hegedušić’s master workshop from 1961 to 1963. In 1966, Šutej started creating more pronounced three-dimensional painting-objects. He made his artworks of complex yet pure conception movable and tactile, to suggest growth, expansion and immersion in the object. He also introduced colour which enhanced the dynamics of his visualisations. He transformed his works into playful objects, and also transferred the mobility of his painting-objects to the field of graphic arts and drawing. After the mid-1970s, Šutej turned to the motifs of folklore and eroticism, and in the 1980s he started creating painting-drawings, collages and mixed-media works of a distinct colourism. He also did ambience and video installations (e.g., Covered Eyes, 2004). Miroslav Šutej was a homo ludens who played by creating and who enthroned play as a fundamental element of his art. In line with Šutej’s credo – which was recorded by art historian Damir Grubić to be the following: Everything is play, play is everything! – the concept of the importance of play and the extent to which it defines the artistic dimension of an individual is mirrored in Šutej’s oeuvre as a whole.

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

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