space in architecture, and the abolition of the distinction between fine and applied arts. Their ideas owed much to the Russian Constructivist avant-garde and the German Bauhaus experience, and Exat wanted to involve artists in the shaping of the environment with an experimental and creative approach. Members of the group included architects Bernardo Bernardi, Zdravko Bregovac, Zvonimir Radić, Božidar Rašica, Vjenceslav Richter, Vladimir Zarahović, and painters Vlado Kristl, Ivan Picelj, Božidar Rašica, and Aleksandar Srnec. Exat's first manifesto in 1951 was fiercely attacked by the traditional art establishment. However, an exhibit of paintings by the group in 1952 in Zagreb was well attended, and in that same year, they participated in the VII Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris. In 1953, an exhibition of paintings was held in the Society of Croatian Architects and there the group issued a second manifesto in response to their critics. Other exhibits followed in Belgrade (1953), Rijeka (1954,1956), Dubrovnik (1956) and finally in Belgrade (1956). Under their influence, Croatian artists moved to more creative and personal forms of expression, to surrealism and lyrical abstraction. EXAT 51 was instrumental in setting up the Zagreb Triennial of Applied Arts, and in establishing a Studio for Industrial Design in 1955. The forerunner of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb was founded in 1954 as a direct result of their efforts. Gorgona Group Gorgona was a group of artists active in Zagreb between 1959 and 1966, that advocated non-conventional forms of visual art expression. It included the painters Josip Vaništa, Julije Knifer, Marijan Jevšovar, Đuro Seder, sculptor Ivan Kožarić, art theoreticians and critics Radoslav Putar, Matko Meštrović, Dimitrije Bašičević (Mangelos), and architect Miljenko Horvat. Individually they were significant representatives of their own artistic fields, and together they had a major impact on the direction of contemporary art in Croatia. Besides working in more traditional techniques, they pioneered radical forms of artistic expression related to existentialism, neo-dadaism and proto-conceptualism. Their anti-magazine Gorgona (11 issues published 1961–1966) was simply designed, each edition intended to showcase the work and views of a single artist and was in itself a printed work of art. The group was preoccupied by the absurd, sent people invitations for events that never took place, placed ads for the sale of trivial objects, planned unfeasible projects, and even went so far as to exclude the audience to have the whole place for themselves. The Gorgona publication, and