A Factual Sketch

The group of painters, architects and designers under the name of EXAT 51 (abbreviation for Eksperimentalni atelier 1951) has for a long time been considered, by general consent, to be a phenomenon of fundamental historic significance to the Croatian art and culture in the period after the Second World War.

One Prediction and the Question of Whether It Came True

The Italian critic, Renato Barilli, once claimed once that, in the future, art historians would draw a dividing line at the year 1968, to mark the separation between the two phases of artistic developments in the second half of the twentieth century - i.e. those from the period pre--1968 and those from the period post-1968.

The work of the group EXAT-51 was accomplished in the early 1950’s (its members issued their Man­ifesto in 1951, and four painters exhibited their work in 1953), but this art circle, or its individual members, also acted in keeping with some principles that had characterised the group’s practice and ideology several years before and some years after these important dates. 

Yugoslavia was one of many European countries that move or less consciously  accepted the need to  get to rise to the challenge of the new  communications technologies and to get to grips with television, in particular, as a key factor in shaping the contemporary 'civilisation of the image'.