Ivan Picelj: Picelj and Friends

The exhibition Picelj and Friends, marking the centenary of Ivan Picelj’s birth, presents the multifaceted role of Ivan Picelj in the history of Croatian art and culture in general. He was one of those who, in the early post-war years, shaped artistic strategies of far-reaching significance and remained consistent in his choices until the end. It would be insufficient to view him solely as a great artist who introduced a series of significant, even tectonic innovations in the field of visual arts, whether in painting, objects, or graphic design. Picelj saw his role more broadly and complexly, as can be observed from his early days when the EXAT-51 Group appeared on the scene, with the group’s first exhibition being held in his apartment. It is also worth mentioning the display of EXAT painters’ works at the first public exhibition at the Architects’ Association, where the arrangement of the paintings was conceived in a completely new way, never before seen in our region. Particularly noteworthy is Picelj’s promotional role in advancing local art abroad and facilitating the exhibition of significant foreign artists in Croatia. Furthermore, his work in the field of graphic design is of exceptional importance. He set high standards, often working for cultural institutions when it came to designing posters, catalogues, and visual identities in general.

Within the circle of EXAT-51 painters, Ivan Picelj is regarded as the most dogmatic artist, representing the ideas expressed in the group’s manifesto. Uncompromising abstraction, in his case of geometric provenance, became the hallmark of early abstract art in the local context. Picelj’s work contained clear connections that integrated Croatian art of the 1950s into the art emerging in major, mostly European, centres of the time. Likewise, his geometric abstraction pointed to shared roots in the resources of the historical avant-garde from the first half of the century.

All of the above is the main reason for expanding Ivan Picelj’s retrospective exhibition, organized on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth, by including all aspects of his work, as well as works by artists close to him, to more comprehensively understand his true place in contemporary Croatian art. The artists whom Picelj promoted, invited, or exhibited with shared the same artistic and cultural strategies, recognizable in their pursuit of the radically new while respecting the best legacies left by Bauhaus, De Stijl, and the Russian avant-garde. The belief in the new, in experimentation as a crucial driver of value, which can be traced back to Picelj’s formative, EXAT phase, became a key element of his art until his final works, including paintings, objects, drawings, and graphics on one hand, and graphic design on the other.

Alongside the comprehensive presentation of Picelj’s oeuvre, the exhibition features works by Yaacov Agam, Getulio Alviani, Hans Arp, Mihajlo Arsovski, Vojin Bakić, Vladimir Bonačić, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Ivo Kalina, Julije Knifer, Vladimir Kristl, Almir Mavignier, François Morellet, Božidar Rašica, Jesús Rafael Soto, Aleksandar Srnec, and Victor Vasarely.

Curator: Zvonko Maković 

About Picelj 
Ivan Picelj (Okučani, 1924–Zagreb, 2011) was a Croatian visual artist and designer, a pioneer in multiple artistic fields, and an initiator of numerous projects that made the local scene compatible with broader, international perspectives. He was a leading figure in abstraction during the 1950s and one of the most prominent Croatian artists of the second half of the 20th century. Picelj was a member of the EXAT-51 art group and the New Tendencies movement, which placed Zagreb on the global art map. He left an indelible mark on various areas of artistic creation, as well as on the cultural scene in Zagreb, particularly the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, for which he shaped the visual identity over many years.

In 1943, Picelj enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb but left after three years due to dissatisfaction with the teaching methods. Despite this, he successfully worked on the design and arrangement of stands at the Zagreb Fair, and on this basis, along with colleagues Vjenceslav Richter and Aleksandar Srnec, he was entrusted with the design of Yugoslav pavilions at exhibitions in Zagreb, Vienna, Hannover, Stockholm, Turin, and Chicago. He co-founded the EXAT 51 group, which in its manifesto highlighted the aim of bringing art and design closer together to improve the quality of everyday life. This approach brought the Bauhaus idea of the importance of designing the human environment for the quality of life to the local context. In 1959, Picelj exhibited for the first time at the Denise René Gallery in Paris, with which he would later establish a close collaboration, not only as an exhibiting artist but also as the creator of posters for numerous exhibitions held at the gallery during the 1960s. He was one of the initiators of the New Tendencies movement and participated in all its exhibitions from 1961 to 1975, designing some of his most famous posters, and was one of the founders of the Studio for Industrial Design (SIO).

He participated in numerous exhibitions, including: the Venice Biennale (1969, 1972), A Century of Avant-garde Art in Middle and Eastern Europe (Kunsthalle, Bonn, 1994), Constructivism and Kinetic Art (City Gallery, now MSU, Zagreb, 1995), Ivan Picelj — Graphic Art Opus (International Centre of Graphic Arts (MGLC), Ljubljana, 2003), Crystal & Surface 1951-2005 (Klovićevi Dvori Gallery, Zagreb, 2005), and Picelj (Denise René Gallery, Rive Gauche, Paris, 2008).

As a designer of posters, catalogues, and typography, he had long-term collaborations with the Gallery of Contemporary Art (now MSU Zagreb), the Museum of Arts and Crafts, Museum Space (now Klovićevi Dvori Gallery), the Croatian Graphic Institute, Matica Hrvatska, the publishing house Znanje, the Gavella Drama Theatre, among others, and he also designed numerous books.

Picelj initiated many exhibitions, guest appearances, and projects based on international collaboration to promote constructivist art. His works have been exhibited in many renowned institutions both locally and internationally and are now part of prestigious museum collections, such as Tate Modern and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, the Boymans Museum in Rotterdam, the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, the Museum of Art in Łódź, as well as the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

He was the recipient of the Vladimir Nazor State Award for Lifetime Achievement (1994.); the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Croatian Designers Association (2001), and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Croatian Association of Fine Artists (2006.).