Mangelos

Born 1921 in Šid, Serbia
Died 1987 in Zagreb, Croatia

“Under the pseudonym Mangelos, Dimitrije Bašičević was one of the most important artists from former Yugoslavia whose work strongly influenced subsequent generations. Parallel to his career as an art historian, critic and curator at the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zagreb he created a unique oeuvre, which has gained widespread international recognition. In his Manifestos, he carried on a dialogic and combative relation with everything he studied, including philosophy and art, psychoanalysis, biology and physics. Through his particular form of expression and very subjective viewpoints, he promoted his theory of ‘second civilisation’. As a self-aware philosopher-skeptic who challenged art, Mangelos engaged in an open-ended dialogue with a series of characters by reducing his thoughts into short and precise, or what he called ‘super-Wittgensteinian’ propositions, that he would write on wooden boards, globes and artist’s books.”

— Branka Stipančić