COURAGE

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During the years 1970-1971, the Central State Archives (now the National Archive of the Czech Republic) processed the collection of the Central Press Supervision Authority, which existed until 1968. The processed materials were later used by the State Security to analyse the behaviour of intellectuals during the Prague Spring. The original Central Press Supervision Authority files inventory from 1971 is currently available online.

In 1970, Tošo Dabac died and he left his studio and its entire inventory, including negatives, photographs and documents, to his nephew Petar Dabac, who was also a photographer. According to Marina Benažić, Petar Dabac took exemplary care of the materials during the thirty-four years he managed the studio, and it is to his great credit that the materials are so well-preserved. Petar Dabac had his photo gallery in the atelier (later the archives) until the beginning of Croatia’s War of Independence, and forty-seven exhibitions of renowned international and Croatian photographers and a series of workshops were held there during the 1980s.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, it was increasingly difficult to maintain the Tošo Dabac Archive, so that Petar Dabac launched negotiations with the City of Zagreb on the purchase of the collection.

In the 1970s-1980s, Marian Kropyvnytskyi had meetings with prominent Malevich experts, Dmytro Gorbachev and Oleksandr Parnis. He gave the latter a copy (one sheet) of the meeting minutes of the color section of the faculty of formal-technical disciplines. Then, Kropyvnytskyi made no mention of his private archive. It is possible that he did not know of their inclusion in his papers, or could not find the relevant documents, or forgot about them, or did not wish to talk about the collection. 

This exhibition for the first time historised, processed and took a comprehensive look at the ‘New Art Practice’, the art of the 1970s. Although the exhibition was too close in time to fully review the new art forms, it was yet another indication that the Museum of Contemporary Art was ready to present new and radical trends in art. The exhibition was intended to contribute to the better understanding of a very complex development in the art of the 1970s. The Group of Six Artists was represented at the show. Museum Curator Jadranka Vinterhalter analysed their work.