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Milan Kujundzic
Milan Kujundzic
objects, installations and video
Salon 77, April 11 - May 1, 2024
Expressing himself in different media (installation, object, video, drawing and sound), Milan Kujundžić deals with the relationship between the individual and the collective, i.e. questioning the position of the individual within the wider and narrower global system. He is interested in the question of man's susceptibility to living in a complex social structure, with a large number of predefined rules for living and acting. Looking for border points when the statement acquires a tone of protest and calls for resistance to the order, Kujundžić, with his recent works, reflects on the need for the liberalization of social dogmas and the re-examination of newly created imperatives. "To the fight to save humanity" the artist adds a variety of stripped-down remarks from global reality. Conducted in the spirit of rebellious art of the last century, and anticipating the current phenomena of reality, the works of this exhibition represent Kujundžić's contribution to public consciousness.
Milan Kujundžić was born in 1997 in Foča, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He completed his basic painting studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Trebinje in 2019. He won an award for painting at the same academy and was awarded a special award at the International Student Biennial in Osijek in 2021. He completed his master's studies at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, module New Visual Media. It exhibited at several collective exhibitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia. He exhibited independently in Foča, Trebinje, Sarajevo, Novi Sad, Belgrade and Užice. He participated in numerous colonies, festivals and art workshops in the region and abroad, some of the more important ones being the film workshop "ACTive" in Skopje and Ulcinj and the film workshop "Fighting stigma through film" in London. He is a finalist of the "Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos" award for young visual artists in Serbia in 2022.
He participated in guiding through the exhibition "EUROVISION. CROSSING STORIES AND SPACE" in the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina. He is a member of the Association of Fine Artists of Vojvodina.
The public can visit the exhibition of objects, installations and video works by Milan Kujundžić until May 12 in Salon 77.
Milan Stanojev
Exhibition Milan Stanojev: in the passage of time,
On Tuesday, March 26, at 7 p.m., an exhibition of paintings and graphics by Novi Sad artist Milan Stanojev, titled Milan Stanojev: in the passage of time, was opened in the Pavilion in Tvrđava.
This year marks the end of six decades of professional creativity of the author, one of the most responsible for mapping Novi Sad as a prestigious graphic center in Yugoslavia, professor of the Academy of Arts, participant of numerous exhibitions in the country and abroad, member of ULUS and Graphic Collective, winner of numerous awards and recognitions, among which stands out the Great Seal of the Graphic Collective, awarded in May 1976 for the graphic of Pear on the Table, made in the aquatint technique.
According to the author of the exhibition, Jasna Kujundžić Jovanov, an art historian and art critic, judging the creativity of Milan Stanojev, who continues to create every day, always carries the risk of being missed, and it is difficult to see the extensive work, which numbers thousands of works and whose visual codes flow in parallel. they intertwine, hint at each other. The overriding impression of symbolic-metaphorical frames, during certain periods, changes its appearance: Milan Stanojev continuously conducts a dialogue with himself, and communication occasionally flows in a direct form, showing the image of the moment, and far more often in the form of a kind of visual sign that expresses his thoughts.
The exhibition in the Pavilion in Tvrđava is the second presentation of Milan Stanojev in Niš, after the solo exhibition of graphics organized in Salon 77 in 1983, and is an opportunity to broaden the professional public of Southeast Serbia. As an author of graphics, he showed various interests: in the early period, his attention was focused on themes of associative-abstract content current in graphics and in contemporary painting, which is characterized by coloring and the gradual introduction of figurative accents and records, according to the author. From the end of the seventh decade, his graphics are characterized by different types of figuration, realized in different techniques, from aquatint, through lithography, which provides him with the conditions for introducing color, to the combination of aquatint and reserver, which enables refined tonal transitions within the black and white range. The thematic situations in which the human figure and the products of man's work and existence are present are characterized by narrative, irony, grotesque, metaphorical-symbolic tone, Apollonian-Dionysian conflict. From pop art "realism" in the early years of his work, Milan Stanojev reached the grotesque and social criticism in the final phase of graphic design at the end of the last century. Over the years, he experimented with the possibilities of the graphic board, performed technological feats on the subjects of "small things" (fruit, everyday objects such as curtains, laundry baskets, pillowcases, etc.), showed the poetic values of landscapes, explored light and shadow in nature and on urban fragments, in order to bring nature back into the associative domain at one point. At the same time, he expressed himself as a draftsman, challenging the viewer to wonder if drawing always preceded graphics, or if the process was reversed.
Although it seems incompatible, it is similar to painting, which represents a significant segment, and since the beginning of this century, the predominant technique in Milan Stanojev's work, the author notes. His paintings of monumental format evoke different stages of graphic work, but at the same time live a completely new and different life, often entering the domain of abstraction. Although current for more than two decades, this part of Milan Stanojev's creativity is still waiting for the right interpretation, which, Jasna Jovanov points out, will perhaps be initiated by this exhibition organized by the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Art Nis, which the public will be able to visit until April 15.
EXISTENTIAL ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY SCULPTORAL PRACTICE
EXISTENTIAL ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY SCULPTORAL PRACTICE
a selection from the Fund of sculptures from the collection of the SLU Niš Gallery
On Thursday, March 7, 2024, at 7 p.m., the exhibition "Existential questions in contemporary sculptural practice" will be officially opened in the International Art Studio "Radovan Tranavac Mića". The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Art from Niš, as part of the program marking the Day of the City of Valjevo. The author of the exhibition is the museum advisor Milica Todorović.
The exhibition consists of the works of ten sculptors, whose works are part of the Contemporary Sculpture Collection in the collection of the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Art Nis, which is predominantly based on the works of artists from Serbia, but also authors from all the former Yugoslav republics. In front of the audience are the sculptures of Zlatko Glamočak, Mirko Marić, Rajko Popivoda, Zdravko Joksimović, Dragan Jelenković, Marko Crnobrnja, Mrđan Bajić, Gabriel Glid, Radoš Antonijević and Rado Mutapović. The Gallery of Contemporary Fine Art Nis has enriched its collection with exhibited works thanks to the participation of the aforementioned authors in the work of the "Sićevo" Art Colony, or purchases from their individual and collective exhibitions realized in Nis.
Ten artists, whose works make up the exhibition, treat completely different phenomena of reality in a symbolic and metaphorical way, through narratives whose sources belong to the fields of human psychology, ethics or are from the domain of ecology, social and social politics.
"On the occasion of the presentation in Valjevo, a selection of ten sculptures created during the last twenty years was made. The exhibition is conceptually designed to emphasize two characteristics typical of recent sculptural practice. The first is of an artistic-visual character and implies the phenomenon of breaking through and expanding the established notion of sculptural, which is accompanied by the process of relativizing definitions of sculpture. The second change is of a content-cognitive nature, and it manifests itself primarily in the domain of expanding the thematic repertoire of sculptural works with those themes that contain a clear allusion to the existential questions of the life of a man caught in the labyrinth of existing social circumstances. We must emphasize that the process of shaking the "certainty" of modernism, which was content with so-called neutral themes and mostly artistic research, began with the appearance of a new generation of sculptors, mostly from the Belgrade art scene, at the end of the eighties of the 20th century, but it experienced its serious momentum only in this century, i.e. the last about twenty years. It is precisely the awareness of contemporary humanistic and ethical issues that is the common denominator of the works that make up the exhibition in Valjevo, pointing us to the existence of different aspects of artistic engagement", says the author of the exhibition, Milica Todorović.
The exhibition will be open until April 1, 2024.
Peking Opera Biennial Posters
EXISTENTIAL ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY SCULPTORAL PRACTICE
a selection from the Fund of sculptures from the collection of the SLU Niš Gallery
On Thursday, March 7, 2024, at 7 p.m., the exhibition "Existential questions in contemporary sculptural practice" will be officially opened in the International Art Studio "Radovan Tranavac Mića". The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Art from Niš, as part of the program marking the Day of the City of Valjevo. The author of the exhibition is the museum advisor Milica Todorović.
The exhibition consists of the works of ten sculptors, whose works are part of the Contemporary Sculpture Collection in the collection of the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Art Nis, which is predominantly based on the works of artists from Serbia, but also authors from all the former Yugoslav republics. In front of the audience are the sculptures of Zlatko Glamočak, Mirko Marić, Rajko Popivoda, Zdravko Joksimović, Dragan Jelenković, Marko Crnobrnja, Mrđan Bajić, Gabriel Glid, Radoš Antonijević and Rado Mutapović. The Gallery of Contemporary Fine Art Nis has enriched its collection with exhibited works thanks to the participation of the aforementioned authors in the work of the "Sićevo" Art Colony, or purchases from their individual and collective exhibitions realized in Nis.
Ten artists, whose works make up the exhibition, treat completely different phenomena of reality in a symbolic and metaphorical way, through narratives whose sources belong to the fields of human psychology, ethics or are from the domain of ecology, social and social politics.
"On the occasion of the presentation in Valjevo, a selection of ten sculptures created during the last twenty years was made. The exhibition is conceptually designed to emphasize two characteristics typical of recent sculptural practice. The first is of an artistic-visual character and implies the phenomenon of breaking through and expanding the established notion of sculptural, which is accompanied by the process of relativizing definitions of sculpture. The second change is of a content-cognitive nature, and it manifests itself primarily in the domain of expanding the thematic repertoire of sculptural works with those themes that contain a clear allusion to the existential questions of the life of a man caught in the labyrinth of existing social circumstances. We must emphasize that the process of shaking the "certainty" of modernism, which was content with so- called neutral themes and mostly artistic research, began with the appearance of a new generation of sculptors, mostly from the Belgrade art scene, at the end of the eighties of the 20th century, but it experienced its serious momentum only in this century, i.e. the last about twenty years. It is precisely the awareness of contemporary humanistic and ethical issues that is the common denominator of the works that make up the exhibition in Valjevo, pointing us to the existence of different aspects of artistic engagement", says the author of the exhibition, Milica Todorović.
The exhibition will be open until April 1, 2024.
FINE ARTS OF NIS
FINE ARTISTS OF NIŠ ‒ A SELECTION OF WORKS FROM THE COLLECTION OF GALLERY SLU NIŠ
The desire and need to study the works of fine artists from Niš in the collection of the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Art Niš was stimulated by a significant anniversary - 150 years since the birth of Nadežda Petrović, a famous painter, art teacher, organizer of cultural events, author of art criticism, a socially engaged woman who collected ethnographic subject and expressed her patriotism as a war photographer and nurse in the Balkan wars and the Great War. She was the progenitor of Serbian modernism, our most significant artist at the beginning of the last century. She founded the First Yugoslav Art Colony in the village of Sićevo near Niš, the forerunner of today's Sićevo Art Colony.
The time in which she and her contemporaries lived and the position of women in society are significantly different from today. The beginning of the twentieth century was a period of intense struggle for women's emancipation in all segments of life and society, and over a hundred years later, although not all over the world, women have the right to vote, can study and work, but our society is still patriarchal. on the way to achieving equal opportunities for all.
In the first decades after the liberation of the country in the Second World War, according to the general social climate, political and material conditions, modest conditions of schooling and training, the position and education at that time, and despite the already won women's rights, there were only a few academically educated authors in the city. The development of culture, the activities of the Association of Fine Artists, the establishment of the Art School and, later, institutions specialized in contemporary creativity, led a greater number of women to pursue the professional practice of fine art, and the end of the twentieth century marks the appearance of new generations of female painters and graphic artists, who are involved in current trends , presenting his work independently or at collective screenings, as part of residency programs and projects.
The personality, creativity and social engagement of Nadežda Petrović were the immediate inspiration for dealing with this topic, with the intention of pointing out the valuable contribution of women who were engaged in art and were active participants in the artistic and cultural life of Niš.
With the establishment of the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Art in 1970, Niš received an institution that, from the very beginning, in addition to monitoring, popularizing and presenting contemporary national and foreign creativity, was also dedicated to collecting, preserving, studying and protecting works of art. Today, the gallery is a heritage in the artistic, aesthetic and historical sense of a valuable fund of 1778 exhibits classified into five collections.
The collection of works by the artists of Niš, formed thanks to gifts, purchases, the Sićevo Art Colony, the Graphic Workshop and other types of programs, gives an insight into the flows and multi-layered changes of the visual scene of this region and is the subject of curators' activities and studies, until now based mainly on analysis in thematic -motive, i.e. style-media sense.
Part of the Collection consists of the works of artists who live, work and create in the city of Nišava, or who are related to this climate by origin or work history. The collection of the Gallery includes a hundred works by forty female authors of different generations, stylistic orientations and artistic practices, who represent the significant cultural heritage of the city and map Nišlijke as fruitful actors of the cultural life of their environment and the entire country.
From the very beginning, the gallery has tried to follow and support the work of artists of different ages, from the very young, through artistically formed representatives of the middle generation, to already established, prominent protagonists with rich careers, members of the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia (ULUS), winners of awards and significant recognitions for work. Some of them were educated or trained abroad and were active in international frameworks, and a certain number of them are dedicated to pedagogical work at the Faculty of Arts, the Art School or related educational institutions.
As is the case in the Collection of fine artists of Niš and the fund as a whole, their works are dominated by graphics, paintings and drawings, valuable in terms of getting to know the work, following creativity, individual development path and insight into the art scene of the city. Only a few sculptures are represented, with a noticeable absence of interest in research in the field of new media and photography. The collection is enriched with these exhibits mostly thanks to the Sićevo Art Colony and Graphic Workshop, and a certain number are individual gifts or purchases from independent and collective exhibitions.
In order to comprehensively present the work of female authors from Niš, fifty works created between 1973 and 2021 have been selected for this exhibition. These are works exhibited individually, at independent or collective exhibitions, published in catalogs and monographs, but never presented as a whole. Heterogeneous in visual expression, approaches and reflections, in a given chronological framework that includes the period immediately before and since the establishment of the SLU Gallery, as the parent institution that follows the activity of the creators of the city, up to the current moment, these works depict
Nadežda Petrović: Modernity and the nation
Nadežda Petrović: Modernity and the Nation opened on Tuesday, December 5, at the Pavilion in Tvrđava. The exhibition of the author prof. Dr. Lidija Merenik and Prof. Dr. Igor Borozan, the Gallery organizes in cooperation with the National Museum of Serbia in honor of the important national jubilee one hundred and fifty years since the birth of the famous painter.
The exhibition in the Art Pavilion includes a representative selection of fifty works by the progenitor of Serbian modern art from the collections of four institutions: the National Museum of Serbia, the Nadežda Petrović Čačak Art Gallery, the Pavel Beljanski Memorial Collection and the Matica Srpska Gallery in Novi Sad. In a complete and comprehensive way, designed in accordance with leading themes and motifs, through chronological-thematic units, it gives an insight into the development and artistic creativity of Nadežda Petrović from her earliest Munich days, paintings of the country and people, impressionist episodes and national narrative to the Parisian and wartime period.
Known to the general public as one of the founders of the Circle of Serbian Sisters, a war nurse, the only woman on the Serbian banknote, a prominent Serbian artist engaged in art criticism, pedagogical work and left a mark in history as a socially engaged woman open to new and advanced ideas. She provoked with her art, courage, avant-garde approach, feminist views and political activism, and showed humanity and patriotism as a war nurse in the Balkan and Great Wars.The exhibition Modernity and the Nation is an opportunity for the audience to get to know the painter as the first Serbian photographer.
Nadežda Petrović's valuable contribution to art and culture, especially in the south of Serbia, is another jubilee - the sixty held convocations of the Sićevo Art Colony.Back in 1905, in a wine-growing village near Niš, with great efforts, hard work and commitment of a persistent and persistent young artist, the First Yugoslav Art Colony was founded, the forerunner of today's Sićevka Colony, which has been maintained continuously for the past six decades and is important for the formation and enrichment of the fund Galleries of contemporary fine art Nis.
During her not-so-long life, one of the most important actresses of the Serbian art scene from the beginning of the last century, she connected several environments with her creativity and social engagement: her native Čačak, Munich where she acquired and perfected her painting skills, Italy and France, the cradle of art and culture, Niš to whom she bequeathed the oldest colony in the Balkans and Valjevo, where she died. From the beginning of the last century, she brought a modern approach to painting to Serbia, marking the national art as modern.
The exhibition in Niš is organized with the support of the City of Niš and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia after being presented to the public at the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade, the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Republic of Serbia in Banja Luka, the Božidar Jakac Gallery in Kostanjevica na Krka and the Nadežda Petrović Art Gallery in Čačak and will be open to the public until January 5, 2024.