About VANIS – Visual Artist Networks Information System

The VANIS is a modular relational database with integrated interfaces for network visualisations, spatiotemporal trajectories, and interactive timelines, the result of a decade-long research into the artistic networks of modern and contemporary art and the global dynamics of cultural exchange.

The VANIS emerged from the ARTNET and GLOBE_exchange research projects, led by Dr Ljiljana Kolešnik at the Institute of Art History between 2014 and 2023, with support from the Croatian Science Foundation and in collaboration with numerous national and international partners. Its architecture and implementation were created jointly by the research teams of both projects, working in close cooperation with the Zagreb-based companies Novena d.o.o. and Efficode Systems d.o.o.

The VANIS brings together data reflecting key research interests and thematic areas explored through these research projects, encompassing the European artistic and cultural landscape of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as well as cultural movements emerging from the anti-colonial struggles and the activities of the Non-Aligned Movement. As a result, alongside extensive documentation of twentieth-century avant-garde and neo-avant-garde movements, the database also includes substantial datasets on modern art in West and Central Africa, Latin American New Cinema, Latin American conceptual art, and the biennials of the Global South.

Croatian modern and contemporary artistic culture is presented within the system in its correlation to international artistic, cultural, and socio-political currents, covering, among others, the Croatian Secession, the Association of Artists Zemlja, the avant-garde movement ZENIT, the CIAM network, aspects of socialist-era commemorative sculpture, the New Tendencies movement, and Croatian art and art criticism of the 1990s.

In addition to research-generated materials and data entries, the VANIS integrates the exhibition history of the Zagreb Salon, created in collaboration with the Croatian Association of Visual Artists, as well as datasets obtained from the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography. These data collections provide information on almost all modern and contemporary artists from Croatia and a significant number of artists from the former Yugoslavia. The inclusion of open datasets from Tate Modern and MoMA, sourced from GitHub repositories, further broadens the international scope of the available information.

In addition to data, the VANIS Information System offers a set of tools for advanced analysis of complex cultural phenomena. Its users can explore network visualisations, examine the spatiotemporal trajectories of individuals, objects, and events, and generate interactive timelines, enabling in-depth study of relationships between artistic practices and their wider social, political, economic, and cultural context.

Designed for researchers, GLAM professionals, artists, and cultural practitioners, the VANIS operates as an open, extensible resource infrastructure for the study of modern and contemporary art, within both local and global historical and geopolitical contexts. It aims to support rigorous scholarship, foster new comparative perspectives, and encourage the discovery of previously unspotted connections across the global art world.