"1112 – An Exhibition of Croatian Design” is on at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb. Antun Debak points out some highlights.
This exhibition of Croatian design is the only event on this scale so far in Croatia. It covers (almost) all areas of design, and over the last 13 years it has achieved high regard among design professionals as well as the general public.
The aim of this exhibition is to affirm design as a market and a socially relevant profession. At the exhibition you can see design works by professional designers as well as student work.
From my personal point of view, I believe that in Croatia there are many other designers who could have been a valuable addition to this exhibition and whose work is well worth featuring. However, the Croatian Designers’ Society, the organizers of this exhibition has said that tough selection procedures and strict rules are necessary for a national exhibition like this.
I don’t really like the exhibition design (or better to say – I think it could be much better) and I’m not quite getting what the deal is with the pallets and dirty building-site elements used in so many places these days (exhibitions, conferences, offices etc.) – except it’s cheap to set up I guess.
However, aside from this, you can find a lot of interesting works by Croatian designers which make this exhibition worth visiting. I would say that product design is definitely the shining light of the exhibition and that product design itself in Croatia over the last few years seems much more self-confident and internationally-oriented, which is definitely the way to go.
For each exhibited work, printed and interactive, there is a detailed label with a description of the exhibited work so everyone can learn about the problem and the solution presented by the design. You can also find a catalogue of exhibited works in the Museum shop. It costs 180 HRK (about 24€), and if you are a collector of design exhibition catalogues I’d say this one is worth buying.
If you are located in Croatia and you are a designer in any of the above-mentioned design fields you should definitely visit this exhibition. Also, if you are on a business trip to Zagreb and you are in the design business, try to find some time and visit Museum of Arts and Crafts.
You can see the whole exhibition within one hour if you are looking just for inspiration or a basic understanding of the current Croatian design scene. Of course, if you want to take a deeper look at all the exhibited works you will need some more time for it.
There are just two more weeks to go, so hurry up and grab some design inspiration!