Nouvelle tendance

also: New Tendencies · Nove tendencije

movement 1961-1973 Yugoslavia Europe

Nouvelle tendance (New Tendencies) grew out of a 1961 group exhibition at the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, organized by the critic Matko Meštrović with the gallery's director Božo Bek and the Brazilian-born artist Almir Mavignier. Rather than a shared style, it was a shared program: systematic research into visual perception, movement, and later computers, carried out by artists from Europe and the Americas - groups like GRAV, Gruppo N, Gruppo T, and Zero, alongside Croatian artists of the EXAT 51 circle. The five Zagreb exhibitions between 1961 and 1973, with their catalogues and the journal Bit international, made the city a Cold War-era meeting point for kinetic, op, and computer art. The movement prized the reproducible multiple over the unique artwork and freedom from every convention.

The Tribuna of the Uffizi (Zoffany)
The Tribuna of the Uffizi (Zoffany)Public domain (credit: Johann Zoffany) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Movement conveyed through repetition: serial, modular units multiplied across the surface
  • Optical vibration, moiré, and high-contrast pattern designed to stimulate a more active field of vision
  • Kinetic and lumino-kinetic constructions - light, reflection, and real motion as materials
  • Programmed, quasi-scientific method: works planned as research into perception rather than personal expression
  • Preference for the reproducible multiple and the construction over the unique hand-made object
  • Viewer participation: works that change as the spectator moves

Key figures

  • Almir Mavignier (1925-2018) — Brazilian-German painter and designer whose 1959-60 Zagreb visits sparked the first exhibition
  • Ivan Picelj (1924-2011) — Croatian EXAT 51 painter-designer, co-founder of the movement and designer of Bit international covers
  • Julio Le Parc (1928-2026) — Founding member of GRAV whose light and pendulum works were shown at the Zagreb exhibitions
  • François Morellet (1926-2016) — GRAV co-founder whose rigorous geometric multiples epitomize the movement's programmatic art

Example works

  • Varijabili VI — Vladimir Kristl (1962)
  • Reljefometar — Vjenceslav Richter (1967)
  • Prostorna konstrukcija — Juraj Dobrović (1968)

Sources

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