Zagreb Fair 1956.-1961.
Social, Economic, (Geo)Political, and Spatial Flywheel of
Development of the Socialist City
May 21 – June 6, 2024.
Curators: Sonja Leboš, Lana Lovrenčić
Vernissage: May 21, 2024 at 7pm
Gallery “Modulor” working hours: Monday to Friday 10am to 8 pm
Concept: Association for za interdisciplinary and Intercultural Research
Production: Association for za interdisciplinary and Intercultural Research in collaboration with Centre for Culture Trešnjevka and the Institute for Art History
Support: City of Zagreb, Ministry of Culture and Media
The exhibition is a part of the research project by the jInstitute for Art History FEMO – Phenomena of Croatian Art Modernity;
Intern Research Projects are financed by: NextGenerationEU 2021.–2026. (NPOO).
The exhibition provides guidelines for the study of the social, economic, (geo)political and spatial contribution of the Zagreb Fair to the development of a socialist city, and thus the (socialist) world. The locus of the Zagreb Fair is a strong reflection of the global dynamics mirrored in it at the time of the escalation of Cold War policies, as a result of the division of the world after World War II into two ideological poles, capitalist and socialist. On the other hand, the Zagreb Fair connected these poles through ubiquitous consumerism and competition in technological progress, which implied and enabled the extraction of natural resources on an unprecedented scale. This exhibition, the first in a series of exhibitions that we will dedicate to the Zagreb Fair, deals with the period from its inauguration on the right bank of the Sava river to 1961, which brings the formalization of the Non-Aligned Movement, economic stagnation, while in the local context the outlines of The New Southern Zagreb are formed.
Sonja Leboš, Lana Lovrenčić
About authors
Sonja Leboš, Ph.D., defended her doctoral thesis under the title “City on Film, Film in the City: Zagreb 1941-1991, cultural-anthropological perspective” in November 2022. Cultural anthropologist, expert in cultural tourism, and art educator. She also studied set design and architecture in Prague and Zagreb. Her activities are in the domain of cultural and urban studies, education and production in culture and art, visual and urban anthropology, and discourse analysis, while her artistic, curatorial, and scientific work tends to merge the liminal fields of narrative urbanism and visual arts, design, theory and practice of performativity, film, and new media.
Lana Lovrenčić
Full bio here.
