08 Jul 2009

Volume 84 of Zivot Umjetnosti has just been published

What are the differences between applied arts and design? Do these two fields resemble each other in some way? Are you familiar with the notions of engaged design and product design, and do you know who created the font called Brioni? Are the applied arts capable of coping with global processes and corporate needs? Do I-Gle draw? What is the position of Croatian authors on the scene of global designer movements and do we participate in the topography of events in the field of applied arts?

This issue of Zivot umjetnosti (no. 84) is dedicated to design and applied arts. Articles by Ivana Fabrio, Koraljka Vlajo, Masa Strbac, Nikolina Vrekalo, Zrinka Kuic, Ivica Buljan, and Nenad Roban, and interviews that Maroje Mrduljas conducted with three professors and collaborators of UMAS – Lerotic, Mitrovic, and Mars – and three protagonists from the typography scene – Nikola Djurek, Damir Bralić, and Željko Serdarević – reflect on the circumstances of transition and post-transition that have made an impact on the fields of design and applied arts.

In the cleft between commercialization, aesthetization, conceptualization, and culture as such, we present a number of new and interesting ideas on topics that permanently influence our visual environment:

'...we have dedicated this issue of Život umjetnosti to identifying various initiatives and practices that derive their methodologies and conceptions from very heterogeneous fields, beginning with the applied arts, which have often been undeservedly discredited as archaic, and ending with the latest tendencies related to interactions design and the emergence of new social networks on the Internet. The intention of the editorial board was not to offer answers to the problem of marginalization and perhaps self-sufficiency of Croatian design, but to draw the outlines of those research-oriented, theoretical/educational, and creative practices that are unburdened both by traditional and contemporary dogmatisms and exclusions, thus opening up new horizons and giving its valuable contribution to those fields that are complementary to design.'
Maroje Mrduljas, (excerpt from introduction)

issue guest-editors: Koraljka Vlajo i Maroje Mrduljas

ZIVOT UMJETNOSTI
Magazine for Contemporary Visual Arts
ISSN 0524-7794


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Život umjetnosti – more than 40 years of tradition. The journal is dedicated to the most various aspects of contemporary visual practice in Croatia, the region, and beyond.

Topics covered in 2009:
Život umjetnosti 84 – Design and the Applied Arts Today (summer)
Život umjetnosti 85 – Curators' Platforms _ Models of Curatorship (winter)

The journal is published twice a year (June/December) bilingually (Croatian/English).

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