Mangelos
dal 18/9/2014 al 7/11/2014
Segnalato da
18/9/2014
Mangelos
Aanant & Zoo, Berlin
documenta - ?. The exhibition presents works produced primarily in the 1970s and thereby provides an overview of this central create phase of the artist's career.
The Croatian artist Dimitrije Bašičević (1921-1987) made his first appearance under the
pseudonym Mangelos in a 1968 exhibition in Belgrade. Early text-based work in the form of
notebooks created in the 1940s, in which the artist scawled black marks to represent friends and
neighbors killed in war, as if they had been stricken from a list, foretells an interest in written
language that would persist through Mangelos’ career. In the 1950s and 1960s, his primary materials
were notebooks, slates and globes; readymades which he transformed and reinterpreted by inscribing
on them letters, words, sentences, Cyrillic or Glagolithic characters and sometimes longer texts in
Latin.
With the aim of developing an art that freed itself from metaphorical readings, Mangelos created
objects that represented their own negation. His „No-Art“ arose. Through the non-representation of
the represented, as in Nègation de la peinture (neg.d.p. IX) (1951-56), by painting over and
crossing out existing contexts, a practice that runs through his entire oeuvre, as well as through the
use of individual letters and words that, ripped from their context, lose their communicative
content, as in glagolitic letter N (1970), Mangelos endeavored to, in his own words, „negate the
painting by creating it in the form of words“ and „negate the word by painting it.“ This later work is
thus more descriptive than prescriptive, and could also be understood as pictorial art criticism.
These issues are at the core of the exhibition documenta - ?, which presents works produced
primarily in the 1970s and thereby provides an overview of this central create phase of the artist’s
career. In this period Mangelos frequently manipulated found newsprint and constructed
self-composed manifestos. These manifestos are today the most significant source of information
regarding the groundwork of his philosophies and his understanding of art.
Dimitirije Bašičević (died 18th December 1987 in Zagreb) held a PhD in art history in addition to
his practice as an art critic, curator and artist. In his writing he regularly advocated for the
advancement of abstract art in his home country of Croatia. He contributed to the implementation
of Salon 54, the inaugural exhibition of abstract art in Yugoslavia, and was the first director of the
Gallery of Primative Art in Zagreb. His artistic works, produced under the pseudonym ‘Mangelos’
and as part of the art historian and artist collective Gorgona, remained hidden from the public for
the majority of his life. Today his works can be found in numerous prestigious collections such as
the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), the Tate Modern (London) as well as MOMA / Museum of
Modern Art (New York).
Image: manifesto of manifesto, 1977. Silkscreen on paper, 84 x 52 cm
Laura Jung, Gallery Manager &
Press inquiries
laura@aanantzoo.com
Opening Friday 19 September, 7-10 pm
Aanant & Zoo
Bülowstr. 90 - D–10783 Berlin
Wednesday – Saturday
11am – 6pm and by appointment