Exhibition concept: Goran Arčabić
Exhibition design: Bilić_Müller Design Studio
Poster design: Bilić_Müller Design Studio
The exhibition A step towards the new century: the Husbandry Exhibition in Zagreb, 1891 is a part of the programme for the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of Zagreb City Museum. The exhibition is the outcome of several years of study of the economic history of the city of Zagreb and is an introduction to a study project starting off the systematic investigation, evaluation and presentation of the economic heritage of Zagreb.
Two premises determined the conception of the exhibition: the consideration and reinterpretation of facts about an important economic event in Croatia at the end of the 19th century, and an endeavour to define the significance of the Husbandry Exhibition in Zagreb in the context of similar events in Central Europe. The attempt to evaluate the economic importance, the influences on modernisation and town planning, as well as the political messages conveyed by the exhibition, has by no means exhausted all the aspects of its significance, rather merely paves the way for future research. Photographs and writings from associates abroad (from Budapesti Történeti Múzeum – Kiscelli Múzeum, Civici Musei di Storia ed Arte Trieste, Muzeum hlavního mĕsta Prahy, Wien Museum) have aided in the contextualisation of the event, thanks to which the exhibition A step towards the new century: the Husbandry Exhibition in Zagreb, 1891 has taken on some of the characteristics of an international project.
The exhibition deals with the importance of a major economic event, the tradition of which has been inherited by the contemporary trade exhibition industry firm the Zagreb Fair, which has joined in the project of Zagreb City Museum, taking the role of chief sponsor. The catalogue of the exhibition A step towards the new century: the Husbandry Exhibition in Zagreb, 1891 is the publication in which the Zagreb Fair will announce for the first time its own centennial celebrations, timed to take place in 2009.
Goran Arčabić
Pictures from the exhibition
photo Miljenko Gregl, ZCM
Exhibition catalogue
Arčabić, Goran. A step towards the new century : the Husbandry Exhibition in Zagreb, 1891.
Zagreb : Zagreb City Museum, 2007
Related published papers
Arčabić, Goran. A Step Away From the New Century. // NovostiNews : Zagreb Fair Newsletter, III, 9(2007), p. 12.
