Darko Fritz

Since the late 1980s, the work of artist, curator and researcher Darko Fritz has revolved around a significant investigation into the use of technology in culture. He studied architecture in Zagreb and visual arts at Rijkakademie van beldende kunsten in Amsterdam. His work bridges over the gap between contemporary art, media art and network culture, taking up topics such as the glitch, error, and surveillance. He uses different media (graphic art, photography, video, internet, etc.). He is a critical observer of technology that changes the society, but he has also worked on a series of projects in which he used untypical media (regulation of tramway traffic or horticultural installations, transgressing the contents from the digital domain).

His curatorial work and research on New Tendencies and early digital art has earned international acclaim with exhibitions at HDLU, Zagreb (2000), Neue Galerie, Graz (2007), ZKM, Karlsruhe (2008-09) and Akbank, Istanbul (2014). Fritz co-edited with M. Gattin, M. Rosen and P. Weibel related catalogue/book “A Little-Known Story about a Movement, a Magazine, and the Computer’s Arrival in Art: New Tendencies and Bit International, 1961-1973″, ZKM, Karlsruhe / MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2002, he published “A Brief Overview of Media Art in Croatia (Since the 1960s)” and edited related database at the portal Culturenet. In 2010 he started the research “The beginning of digital arts in the Netherlands (1955 – 1980)”, awarded by grants by Mondriaan Fonds. Fritz is founder and programmer of the grey) (area – space for contemporary and media art since 2006.

Member of professional organizations HDLU (visual arts), ULUPUH (design), and AICA (art criticism).

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