Aleksandar Srnec

Who was Aleksandar Srnec?

Aleksandar Srnec was a Croatian artist. He is mainly known for his avant-garde designs and kinetic and lumino kinetic art.

Srnec was one of the founding members of the Exat 51 group whose active members between 1950 and 1956 were the architects Vjenceslav Richter, Bernardo Bernardi, Zdravko Bregovac, Božidar Rašica and Vladimir Zaharović and the painters Vlado Kristl and Ivan Picelj. He made abstract art based on the use of geometric shapes. In 1953, he designed his first kinetic objects entitled, Space Modulator, while in 1956, he began his experiments with moving sculptures and reliefs.

In the 1960s, Srnec participated in the New Tendencies exhibitions. From 1962, he became involved with luminal-kinetic experiments, for example Luminoplastic I, and from 1968, he began making "ambience art". His work entitled Luminoplastic Ambience, exhibited in 1967, in Gallery SC, in Zagreb, was the first luminal-kinetic object/ambience in Croatian art. He collaborated with the Zagreb School of Animated Films and made sets for three puppet films. He also made the animated film A Man and His Shadow together with Dragutin Vunak.