Putar, Radoslav, editor.

[YUGOSLAV NEO-AVANT-GARDE – EXPERIMENTAL PHOTOGRAPHY] Spot: časopis za fotografiju. Spot: review of photography. Nos. 1–11 (all published).

Zagreb: Galerije grada Zagreba, 1972–1978. Quartos (30 × 23 cm). Original photo-illustrated wrappers with ca. 48–65 pp. per issue. Illustrations throughout, mostly from photographs. First issue (1972) with introductory pages in Serbo-Croatian, English, and Russian, in French starting 1973. Starting 1975, German replaced Russian. No. 2 leaves detaching from block. Light soil to wrappers, else very good. Item #55373

Complete run of this internationally-oriented Yugoslav fine art photography magazine, dedicated to "raising the general literacy of expression through images" and edited by the Croatian art theorist and founding member of the avant-garde art group Gorgona, Radoslav Putar (1921–1994). “We will take special care that the printed word does not burden the expressiveness of the image, i.e. with its quantity,” write the editors in the opening issue. Photographic images dominate the pages of the journal, focusing especially on recent trends in East European art and photography, showcasing the works of artists such as Peeter Tooming (Estonia), Petr Štembera, and Jiří Valoch (Czech Republic), Mitja Koman (Yugoslavia), among others. Some issues have a special focus, such as no.5, which is dedicated to xerox art, no. 7 is dedicated to British photography, and no. 10 is dedicated to Yugoslav video art, featuring stills from video works of Marina Abramović, Sanja Iveković, and Julije Knifer. Issues also include works of Diane Arbus, Christian Boltanski, Ken Josephson, Lee Friedlander, Duane Michals, Jeanloup Sieff, reviews of exhibitions of artists such as Gerhard Richter, as well as discussions of photography by Man Ray, Moholy-Nagy, and Edward Ruscha.

Radoslav Putar, the head editor of the journal, was a seminal figure in Yugoslav-Croatian contemporary art, with an annual prize in his name awarded to Croatian contemporary artists by the Institute of Contemporary art in Zagreb since 2002. In 1959 Putar became a founding member of the avant-garde art group Gorgona, active in Zagreb until 1966. The group advocated “anti-art”, focusing on new modes of artistic communication such as group walks, assignments, and concept discussions. The group also published an eponymous anti-magazine, with each issue doubling as a work of art or an exhibition. Most recently Gorgona materials were featured in the exhibition “Hello World. Revising a Collection” (Nationalgalerie Berlin, 2018), which sought to reassess the museum’s collection to include non-Western perspectives on artistic practice. Putar would continue working with other Gorgona members on Spot after the group’s dissolution, with another Gorgona founding member, Dimitrije Bašičević, being part of the editorial board of Spot. Other contributors to the issues of the journal included major curators and theorists of contemporary art such as Deša Denegri, Ida Biard, Nena Baljkovic, and Beke László.

As of October 2025, KVK, OCLC show one complete run worldwide, in North America, with scattered issues at five other institutions.

Price: €2,500.00

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