Naivi'87

This catalog is a summation of the Naivi’87 exhibition that was held at the Zagreb City Galleries’ Gallery of Primitive Art from June 26th to August 30th, 1987. Only 2000 of these catalogs exist in print. 

The goal of the exhibition was to showcase the trends of “naive art” in the 10 years leading up to 1987. The term “naive art” was coined to describe the era of art before contemporary art. This term is much outdated and has historically been used to instill the racial hierarchy onto the art world. Stereotypically, the words naive or primitive, which are synonymous in this context, are used to negatively describe non-european artifacts. As stated in the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, “primitive art is an outdated designation,” (Benedetti, 2000). It is also important to note that the exhibition did not feature any art from African or Latin American countries, and instead, only featured art from white European countries. 

The exhibition showed work from countries including France, Yugoslavia (modern day countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, and the Republic of Kosovo), Italy, Hungary, The Federal Republic of Germany (modern day Germany), Romania, the United States, and Great Britain. Inside the catalog, there are photos documenting each of the pieces in the exhibition. The catalog is split into each country that the art is from, and each section starts with a short biography of each artist.
 

Citations:

Benedetti, Joan M. “Words, Words, Words: Folk Art Terminology—Why It (Still) Matters.” Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America 19, no. 1 (2000): 14–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27949051.