Vinko Srhoj, Black on White and Vice Versa

Abstract

This review presents and analyses Vinko Srhoj’s book Black on White and Vice Versa, a compilation of his selected writings on art spanning the last four decades. The selection includes texts of various genres, ranging from scholarly papers, conference talks, and reviews in professional journals, magazines, and daily newspapers to polemics and political interventions in the public sphere. The examination is contextualized within the transformation of the artistic field and the crisis of art criticism, elements that have significantly shaped Srhoj’s career, with the aim of underscoring the significance of his contributions. While Srhoj is a critic of the “old school,” his critical procedure is by no means modernistically distanced: instead, he skilfully blends the utopian dimension of art criticism, integral to the modernist project, with a postmodern critique targeting the (modernist) pillars of the art institution. The collection of texts seamlessly synthesizes the author’s thematic, aesthetic, and theoretical concerns, offering a comprehensive overview of Croatian modern and contemporary sculpture and painting, contextualized within the broader landscape of artistic developments on both the local and international art scenes, as well as within its own socio-political setting.