Aleksandar Srnec

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Aleksandar Srnec (30 July 1924, Zagreb, Kingdom of Yugoslavia – 27 March 2010, Zagreb, Croatia) was a Croatian visual artist, painter, sculptor, creator of objects and installations, who is considered a pioneer of kinetic art in Yugoslavia. He studied at the Akademija likovnih umjetnosti u Zagrebu, Zagreb (1943–1949). He re-interpreted Constructivism, adding dynamism into the plane of the painting through a chaotic composition of lines. Some of his colorful geometric reliefs were equipped with a small engine that set one or more elements into motion. The artist’s experiments weren’t subordinate to any specific program, which is why his creative legacy is expressed through such a uniquely diverse collection. He was also known for his design work, creating posters, setting books and the graphic scheme for exhibitions. (Source)

In the period from 1948 to 1951 he collaborated with Vjenceslav Richter and Ivan Picelj on designs of Yugoslav exhibitions and pavilions at fairs in the country and abroad (Book Exhibition of National Republic of Croatia, exhibition Industry of NR Croatia in Zagreb, exhibition Highway of Brotherhood and Unity in Zagreb and Belgrade, projects for Yugoslav pavilions at fairs in Stockholm, Vienna and Hannover). Together with Ivan Picelj, Božidar Rašica and others he was a member of the group of artists and architects EXAT 51 in 1950-56. In the then dominant climate of socialist realism the group advocated abstract art. With his works in 1953 he participated at the first exhibition of abstract art in public venues in the former Yugoslavia and the rest of the Eastern bloc, held in the Croatian Association of Architects in Zagreb. He transferred his mostly linear compositions during the realization of the object Prostorni modulator [Spatial Modulator] in 1953 from images to the third dimension, and in 1956 his research in the field of sculpture included movement. His experience of working on animated films in Zagreb School of Animation (1959–1960) motivated him to examine the effects of light in motion. Starting from 1962, and most productively in the period from 1965 to 1971, he implemented it in a series of lumino-kinetic objects that represented the most radical innovative strides in visual arts. Luminoplastika [Lumino-plastic] presented in 1967 in the Student Center Gallery in Zagreb is the first representative of its genre in Croatian art, and lumino-plastics were also presented at the exhibitions Nove tendencije [New Tendencies] in 1963 and 1973.

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