The collection of texts Image and Anti-Image – Julije Knifer and the Problem of Representation is based on multi- and transdisciplinary research conducted by Croatian and international critics and theoreticians. They have investigated the contemporary sensibility for the questions of image and pictoriality by referring to a common starting point: the oeuvre of one of the most important Croatian artists – Julije Knifer. In their analysis of Knifer’s paintings since the early 1960s, which revolve around a single motif – the “meander” – which the artist has repeated and varied throughout his artistic career, the authors have followed the changing reception of his work from the supremacy of the high modernist image concept, such as postulated in Greenberg’s formalistic theory, until today, when theoretical proposals have become essentially different. In his introduction to the project, editor Krešimir Purgar has stressed the importance of new perspectives that Knifer’s work may offer if viewed in the context of new disciplines such as visual studies and image science. The 21 articles, grouped into five thematic sections, aim at clarifying and expanding the references of Knifer’s “meander” by taking diverse informative and original approaches that have this recent image theory as their starting point. In the context of Croatian scholarly output, this publication is notable for having accomplished a rare blend between monographic material and a series of interdisciplinary, scholarly-theoretical studies based on extremely varied perspectives, resulting in a valuable comparative miscellany, a contribution both to the actualisation and new positioning of Knifer’s art and to our insight into various analytic and interpretative approaches related to the present state of art theory. Such an approach assigns a special place to the image, to pictoriality and visuality. The theoretical perspectives of image science and the heterogeneous, plural strategies of research developed within the new image studies (image science, visual studies) assimilate and expand rather than replace the previously accepted methods, common in traditional theoretical approaches to the discipline of art history.
Slika i antislika – Julije Knifer i problem prezentacije