New Tendencies, a Yugoslav art movement born in the early 1960s, was one of the first to embrace digital art, writes Jonathan Bousfield.
Sixty years ago, a modest exhibition featuring a group of little-known artists opened in the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, capital of what was then the Croatian republic of a federal Yugoslavia. Named Nove Tendencije, or New Tendencies, it aimed to represent a snapshot of what was happening in the art world of the time. Europe was emerging from over a decade of post-war austerity and reconstruction, and its artists were refashioning the modernist avant-gardes of the inter-war years to address a new age of economic growth and technological progress.
It became an international phenomenon. Four more New Tendencies exhibitions launched between 1961 and 1973, attracting hundreds of artists, critics and intellectuals to a city that was fast emerging as a haven on the cultural cutting edge.
Nurturing neo-abstraction, early premonitions of op-art, and the beginnings of computer art, New Tendencies represents one of Europe’s forgotten avant-gardes... Read more on The Calvert Journal.
Sixty years ago, a modest exhibition featuring a group of little-known artists opened in the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, capital of what was then the Croatian republic of a federal Yugoslavia. Named Nove Tendencije, or New Tendencies, it aimed to represent a snapshot of what was happening in the art world of the time. Europe was emerging from over a decade of post-war austerity and reconstruction, and its artists were refashioning the modernist avant-gardes of the inter-war years to address a new age of economic growth and technological progress.
It became an international phenomenon. Four more New Tendencies exhibitions launched between 1961 and 1973, attracting hundreds of artists, critics and intellectuals to a city that was fast emerging as a haven on the cultural cutting edge.
Nurturing neo-abstraction, early premonitions of op-art, and the beginnings of computer art, New Tendencies represents one of Europe’s forgotten avant-gardes... Read more on The Calvert Journal.