Aleksandar Srnec. 1961. Print (framed).

Description

Aleksandar Srnec was born on July 30, 1924 in Zagreb, where he attended the high school where he taught Antun Motika. In 1943, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. In the first year of studies, with colleagues Ivo Kalin and Ivan Picelje, founds the artistic group Ipikas, named after the initials of the members of the group. After the Second World War, he spent a year at the Faculty of Architecture in Zagreb, and in 1947 he continued his studies at the Academy, which he left forever in 1949.

From 1948 to 1951 s V. Richter and I. Piceljem works on furnishing Yugoslav exhibitions and pavilions at fairs in the country and abroad (Book exhibition of the Republic of Croatia, Industry of the Republic of Croatia exhibition in Zagreb, Highway of Brotherhood and Unity exhibition in Zagreb and Belgrade, Projects for Yugoslav pavilions at fairs in Stockholm, Vienna and Hannover).

In 1951, with Ivan Picelj and Božidar Rašić, founds a group of artists and architects EXAT 51 (abbreviation for Experimental Studio), which operated in the first half of the XNUMXs in the then dominant climate of socialist realism. Along with the founders, the group was soon joined by the architects Bernardo Bernardi, Zdravko Bregovac, Zvonimir Radić, Božidar Rašica, Vjenceslav Richter, Vladimir Zarahović and the painter Vlado Kristl. The basic program of the group was to advocate for the legitimacy of abstract art, and for the equal value of "pure" and "applied" art, that is, for the synthesis of all fine arts. In 1952, Srnec, Picelj and Rašica exhibited in Paris at the 7th Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. The first public exhibition of a group of painters (Kristl, Picelj, Rašica, Srnec) was held in 1953 at the Society of Croatian Architects in Zagreb, and later, the same year, at the Gallery of the Graphic Collective in Belgrade. These were the first exhibitions of abstract art in public spaces in the then FNR Yugoslavia and the rest of the socialist world. Working in the group EXAT 51 left a deep mark on Srnec's creativity, and heralded a new era in Croatian contemporary art. In 1959, he exhibited with Ivan Picelj i Vojin Bakić in the Denise René Gallery in Paris, and in 1960 and 1961 in London's Drian Gallery. In 1950, the abstract drawing Line was created, a key work for the development path of Srnec's artistic creativity.

In 1953, he transferred the two-dimensional game of lines into the three-dimensional body of the object named Spatial modulator, and around 1956 he started experimenting with moving sculptures and reliefs. He made his first reliefs in painted wood at the end of the fifties of the last century, and soon (from 1960) switched to aluminum, metal and plexiglass. From 1955, he began to deal more intensively with collage. In the period from 1959 to 1960, Srnec was involved in cartoons as an associate of the Zagreb School of Cartoons, where he created scenographies for three puppet films and an animated film with Dragutin Vunak. Man and shadow (1960.).

He is the author of the shooting book for the abstract film about the red square Equally immense (1960), which, unfortunately, was never completed. In 1963, he shot the film Beginnings, a series of diverse dynamic light patterns combined into a unique film. The experience of working on a new medium will encourage Srnec to examine the possibilities of light in motion, and he devotes himself (since 1962) to luminokinetic research.

Ambience Luminoplasty, exhibited in 1967 in the Gallery of the Student Center in Zagreb, it represents the first luminokinetic object / environment in Croatian art. In January 1969, at an exhibition in the Gallery of Contemporary Art (now the Museum of Contemporary Art), he exhibits the first and second variants of Luminoplasty, and creates entire luminoambients in which light is projected from one or more sources onto bodies moved by an electric motor, which creates interesting visual effects. He also made films about his luminoplastic objects (Luminoplasty 66). As part of the international movement NOVE TENDENCIJE, founded in Zagreb in 1961, he participated in the exhibitions New Tendencies 2 (PSY XI. and PSY XII.), 1963, and New Tendencies 5, 1973 in the Gallery of Contemporary Art, as well as in a series of exhibitions constructivist art and NEW TENDENCIES in the world. He was also a participant in numerous exhibitions abroad that represented contemporary Yugoslav art, and the XXXIV. of the Venice Biennale, where he shows kinetic multiples, executed in Plexiglas and driven by an electric motor.

From 1974 to 1977, Srnec created kinetic sculptures in highly polished metals, which he exhibited at a solo exhibition in the Nova Gallery in Zagreb in 1978. From the same time, there are cube-shaped objects in the interior of which wire structures are set in motion by an electric motor. From the fifties to the late seventies, Srnec created an extremely large number of achievements in the field of graphic design and visual communications (book equipment, posters for various events, visual identities and other achievements in the sphere of mass public communication). Srnec's prolific work brought him a series of awards, such as the "Vladimir Nazor" Republic Award (1969) for sculpture, the "Josip Račić" Award (1971) for fine arts, the Second Award at the 1973st Yugoslav Biennale of Small Plastics in Murska Sobota (9) .), Awards for sculpture at the 1974th Zagreb Salon (1975), as well as Grand Prix Awards at the III. international biennale of small plastics in Budapest (1999). In XNUMX, he received the "Vladimir Nazor" Award for life's work in the field of fine and applied arts.