The Other Side of the Gorgon

written by Željko Kipke

 

The name of mythological Gorgon permanently marked the Croatian culture of the 1960s and later on. A multimedia hall in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb was named after it. Its artefacts, although rare, are spread throughout the world. For example, the New York MoMa collection includes one sample from a very small edition of collective identity card of the members of the Zagreb group or the Society, the shortened name Radoslav Putar gave the group of Croatian cultural escapists and enthusiasts (in backdated letters between 1863 and 1866). A series of ten compensation photographs with the head of Bernini’s Medusa in the centre were called photo-compensations by Josip Vaništa, and this series has rarely been seen at exhibitions.