1029 - Avant-garde - Eastern Europe - Mangelos (that is: Dimitrije Basicevic). Shid-theory. Entirely screen-printed. Zagreb, Podrom, 1978. 4 sheets, 35.5 x 25 cm. Loose sheets.

Avant-garde - Eastern Europe - Mangelos (that is: Dimitrije Basicevic). Shid-theory. Entirely screen-printed. Zagreb, Podrom, 1978. 4 sheets, 35.5 x 25 cm. Loose sheets. This rare manifesto was presented at an exhibition at Podrom in Zagreb from November 21–23, 1978. — As he himself had accurately foreseen, Dimitrije Basicevic Mangelos died in 1987 at the age of 66; in his manifesto “Shid Theory,” which was published and exhibited in Zagreb in 1978, he divided his life into nine and a half “Mangeloses,” which ended in the year of his death. Referring to the “biopsychological theory”—which he had learned about as a schoolboy in his hometown of Sid in the former Yugoslavia—according to which the cells in the human organism completely renew themselves within seven years and therefore every person carries within themselves several completely different personalities— Mangelos used this theory to explain the differences between the early and late works of various artists, claiming that there were two Rimbauds, two Karl Marxes, three Van Goghs, several Picassos, and nine and a half Mangeloses. He also applied this method to the categorization and dating of his own works: one Mangelos was a critic and curator, while another questioned all of this and claimed that one must start from scratch—tabula rasa. One was active in art institutions, while the other doubted the validity of such systems, which led the third and subsequent ones to persistently adhere to the development of the artistic project called “No-art.” (See Branka Stipancic in the catalog *Mangelos nos. 1 to 9½*. Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, 2003).—Minimally stained, corners with minimal crease marks, overall in very good condition.