Ivan Ladislav Galeta (Zagreb, 1967.-2014.) graduated from the School of Applied Arts in Zagreb (1967), followed by a degree in fine arts from the Faculty of Teacher Training (1969) and Pedagogy from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb (1981). From 1977 to 1990, he was the manager of the University of Zagreb Students Multimedia Centre (MM), the first systematic venue for the screening of national and international experimental film and video art in Croatia. He was the founder and manager of the art cinema Filmoteka 16 (1991-1994). He initiated the introduction of animation (2000) and new media studies (2004) at the same Academy. In 1993 he became an associate media lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, and from 2007 he was a full-time professor.
He has been making films since 1969 and videos since 1975. Since 1973 he has been exhibiting objects-installations, photographs-installations, expanded cinema presentations, video and TV works, texts, sound installations, spatial interventions, environmental projects and actions. In the mid 1990s he adopted an environmental approach to art with references to Henry David Thoreau, Karel Čapek, Masanobu Fukuoka, Bill Mollison, James Joyce, Bela Hamvas, Claude Monet and others. His works are kept in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Oberhausen, the Croatian Film Clubs’ Association… He has won numerous awards, including a medal of honour from the Ministry of Culture and Communications of the French Republic in 1999.
