Art Encounters 2017 Exhibitions:
The Historical Avant-garde and the art of ping-pong

Under the pseudonym Mangelos, Dimitrije Bašičević (1921 – 1987) was one of the most important artists in former Yugoslavia whose work strongly influenced subsequent generations. Parallel to his career as an art historian, critic and curator at the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, he created a unique oeuvre which has gained widespread international recognition, especially over the last thirty years.

Selected exhibitions: Mangelos: manifestos, thesis, projects and notes, Galerie Martin Janda, Wien (2017, solo); Mangelos: a retrospective of exhibitions 1972-1981, Peter Freeman Inc., New York (2017, solo); Modernités plurielles 1905-1970, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015); Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960-1980, MoMA, New York (2015); Miroirs noirs, Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris (2013, solo); Museum of Parallel Narratives: In the Framework of L’International, MACBA, Barcelona (2011); Promises of the Past, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010); Eye on Europe: Prints, Books & Multiples / 1960 to Now, MoMA, New York (2006); Mangelos nos. 1 to 9 ½, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto (2003, solo); In Search of Balkania, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz (2002); Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb / Mestna galerija, Ljubljana (1990, solo); Picasso Phenomenon, Tribina mladih, Novi Sad (1972, solo).

He was active in Belgrade in the immediate postwar period as an art historian, critic and curator, but at the same time he secretly developed unique and original conceptual work, whose great significance was only understood posthumously.

Images:

1. Mangelos, Portrait

2. Mangelos, Manifest Hamurabi m.8 (1971-1977), acrylic on wooden board, 61,3 x 44 cm, courtesy: Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna