The Fate of Photobooks and Photomagazines by Conceptual Artists

Dr. Sandra Križić Roban is participating in the international conference de Estudos de Fotografia, which is being held at the Colégio dos Jesuítas, Universidade da Madeira, Funchal, 19–21 November.

The presentation entitled “Fragile, Modest, and Often for Just One Person: The Fate of Photobooks and Photomagazines by Conceptual Artists” focuses on photobooks and photomagazines by conceptual artists from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. These works are an important part of the New Art Practice that emerged in several art centers of the former Yugoslavia between the late 1960s and 1978. They represent atypical forms of artistic activity, expression, and presentation—rooted primarily in ideas—and diverge from traditional paradigms of artistic communication. By using photography in the medium of books and magazines, these artists promoted art as an act of doing and the book or magazine as a work of artist. Their practice is often interpreted as part of the mental visualization intrinsic to artistic creation. In doing so, they transformed both the concept and status of the artwork, as well as the artist’s role in society. All aspects—from editorial and artistic choices to design, production, and distribution—were handled entirely by the artists.

Conference program here.

This activity is the result of work on the project FEMO – Phenomena of Croatian Artistic Modernity, led by Dr. Ivana Mance Cipek at the Institute of Art History in the period 2023–2027, under the European Union program NextGenerationEU.

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Contact: Sandra Križić Roban