The exhibition presents an overview of the visual identity, visual, and market communications of the Zagreb Fair during the 1950s and 1960s. The precursor to the Fair, Zagreb Assembly (ZZ), had already in the 1920s decided to handle the advertising of its activities “in-house,” offering visitors an insight into the development of graphic design, as noted by L. Magaš Bilandžić, F. Vukić, and others. Although aware of the long history of the Zagreb Fair and its predecessor, the Zagreb Assembly, the exhibition places emphasis on the second half of the 20th century and the socialist era—specifically the 1950s and 1960s, when the Fair experienced its greatest political and commercial prosperity. This was reflected equally in the spatial-urban development of the fairgrounds and in the development of its promotional visual identity and communications. This period has not previously been explored in such a way. The era is equally significant and specific in its didactic-emancipatory influence on the domestic population in the field of housing culture, accompanied by innovative visual design of promotional-educational materials, the promotion of product design, and the development of a recognizable visual identity of its own.

Exhibition authors: Sanja Bachrach-Krištofić, Sonja Leboš, Lana Lovrenčić
Exhibition identity and graphic design: Sanja Bachrach-Krištofić
Production and organization: Croatian Designers Association, Institute of Art History, Association for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Research
HDD Gallery Director: Marko Golub; Assistant Director: Ivan Beritić
Administration: Mirjana Jakušić, Tena Lovrenčić
Acknowledgments: The Archive of Dušan Bekar, State Archives in Zagreb, Print Collection of the National and University Library, Croatian State Archives, HDA-Kinoteka, HRT, Zagreb City Libraries, Lovorka Magaš, Zagreb City Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Museum of Arts and Crafts, the private collection of Bachrach-Krištofić, and the Zagreb Fair for their assistance with research and for providing materials for this exhibition.
Print sponsors: Kerschoffset, Ars kopija

The exhibition is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the City Office for Culture and Civil Society of the City of Zagreb, and the European Union – NextGenerationEU, through funds provided by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021–2026. It is organized within the projects of the Association for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Research Geometries of Growth II and Spaces of New Zagreb 1: Zagreb Fair, as well as the project of the Institute of Art History Phenomena of Croatian Artistic Modernity – FEMU. The exhibition and discursive program of HDD Gallery and the institutional work of the Association for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Research are co-financed by the Kultura nova Foundation.