With its unconventional vibe, artOmat has become one of the most popular winter fairs in Zagreb, offering visitors a mix of exhibitions, art DIY projects and workshops, Christmas shopping and parties. Being held in Mestrovic pavilion, the home of Croatian Association of Artist, it is only fitting that it opens its doors on December 16th with an exhibition of works from more than a hundred young artist, designers and architects.
1,2,3 Postering! is a project started by visual arts and culture magazine Vizkultura in 2013, as part of an ongoing promotion of young creatives trough an almost forgotten form of mass communication in the digital era– posters. For the last two years, Vizkultura has printed one poster a week, by now amassing an impressive number of 123 poster from local and regional designers, artists, copywriters, cartoonists, illustrators and other creative individuals and studios, some well established, some newly discovered.
‘The project started with a premise that posters, as a form of artistic expression, are loosing their ground in the wake of today’s digital forms. We’ve started this collection as a way to revive the medium and its potential as a ‘weapon’ of communication, verbalization, expression and critique’ explains Ivan Dorotic, editor-in-chief at Vizkultura.
The posters have so far been displayed in their natural environments; the streets, walls and billboards around Zagreb with a few exhibitions of selected works. All the posters done to date will be displayed together for the first time on artOmat, providing a valuable and thorough breakdown of styles and directions of the regional creative scene.
‘Creative solutions range from funny, ironic, critical and indirect dealings with actual and acute political, social and (un)cultural situations in the state and region in the last two years, to posters that advocate the necessity of visual culture and art in a broader context, those that deal with problems authors face in their work and those focused on the exploration of the form and its potentials’, Dorotic lists the range of posters exhibited at artOmat.
1,2,3 Postering is not the only poster project on artOmat this year, as the collective This Town Needs Posters will collaborate with visitors in creating a seamlessly never ending DIY poster on December 17th and 18th. In its eight day run, artOmat will host a variety of art projects, workshops and parties, with a hundred selected designers, artists and craftsmen presenting and selling their work.
