Matko Meštrović

Matko Meštrovic was a leading figure in the international New Tendencies (in Croatian: Nove tendencije) art-movement in the 1960s. His publications cover inter-disciplinary critical theory, art criticism, and new information technologies.
His books Dispersion of Meaning - The Fading Out of the Doctrinaire World? (2008) and Towards a New Orientation (2012) are published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Art historian, former professor at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb, interdisciplinary oriented, he is today emeritus senior research fellow at the Zagreb Institute of Economics. He was a leading figure in the international New Tendencies movement in the 1960s. His publications cover inter-disciplinary critical theory, art criticism, and new information technologies. He was director of the Institute for Culture of Croatia for five years (1987-1992). His interest in technology and information science goes back to activities in the Croatian Sociological Society and the International Association of Mass Communication Researchers (IAMCR) in the 70s. Being the consultant to general manager of Zagreb Radio and Television, he tried to introduce the most advanced professional and theoretical know-how concerning public information. The 60s were the period of his life completely devoted to the newly established Centre for Industrial Design. Then, he was also very close to ICSID (the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design). He already had gained a reputation among avant-garde artists and scientists as the organizer of the international New Tendencies movement (Donald D. Egbert, Social Radicalism and the Arts - West Europe, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1970). He was also a member of Zagreb art group Gorgona.

As recently documented by a huge book about New Tendencies and Bit International, 1961-1973, ed. by Margit Rosen, The MIT Press, 2011, that was a short but intense artistic experiment which took place in Yugoslavia some fifty years ago, but whose impact has been felt far beyond that time and place. It was through the activities of that movement, known as Nove tendencije, and its supporting institution, the Galerija suvremene umjetnosti, Zagreb, that the “thinking machine” was adopted as an artistic tool and medium.

As Darko Fritz has explained, during the late 1950’s and early 1960s group of artists start to resist the notion of individual artists’ expressions of than-dominated informel and abstract expressionism. The new approach was rational art that appropriated scientific working methods and start to employ new technologies, materials and methods in art practice. Discourse in art changed: artists shift to researchers or workers; intuitive art process shift to rational structuralized experiment following the terminated program; paintings and sculptures shift to objects, multiples and installations often using light as material; an individual artist creation shift to the subject of group work and art groups itself shift to interdisciplinary teams.

Recognizing such activities around the world an umbrella network was established in Zagreb, that presented pluralistic scene of such art practices. The Gallery of Contemporary Art organized five New Tendencies [NT] exhibitions in Zagreb from 1961 to 1973; in addition, large-scale international exhibitions were held in Paris, Venice and Leverkusen, West Germany. The movement was truly international, both transgressing Cold War blocs and including South American and, later, Asian artists. That situation, unique within the Cold War context, was possible due to Zagreb’s position in then-socialist but non-aligned Yugoslavia.

With their exhibitions and conferences on the theme of computers and visual research and the launch of the multilingual, groundbreaking magazine bit international in 1968, the New Tendencies transformed Zagreb, already one of the most vibrant artistic centers in Yugoslavia, into an international meeting place where artists, engineers, and scientists from both sides of the Iron Curtain gathered around the then-new technology.

Computer and Visual Research - Ways of Thinking and Scope of Acting

An essay by Matko Meštrović from his book Dispersion of Meaning - The Fading Out of the Doctrinaire World? (Cambridge Scholars Publishing):

In his letter addressed to the Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art, in June last year, Frieder Nake asked a curious question: How did it happen that Zagreb for a few years became a very important place for this kind of art and visual research … (Frieder Nake, June 16, 2003).
When I recently received a copy of his letter I was quite embarrassed: How a man who visited that city for several times and regularly participated in activity of its museum from 1968 to 1973 could ask such a question? But trying to react, I found myself uncertain of what really was happening there in those five years.

New Meštrović's book published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing

After having published his book Dispersion of Meaning - The Fading Out of the Doctrinaire World? (2008), the same publisher CSP - Cambridge Scholars Publishing has just published a collection of nine inter-linked essays by Matko Meštrović under the title Towards a New Orientation. A Croatian version of the book, Prema novom usmjerenju, was published by Zagreb publisher Antibarbarus.

A Little-Known Story about a Movement, a Magazine, and the Computer’s Arrival in Art

New Tendencies and Bit International, 1961–1973

published by ZKM / Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and The MIT Press, documents a short but intense artistic experiment which took place in Zagreb fifty years ago, but whose impact has been felt far beyond that time and place.