DAYS OF SERBIA EVENT IN REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

EXHIBITION ART COLONY SIĆEVO – TRADITION THAT CONNECTS US

GALLERY SRETEN STOJANOVIĆ PRIJEDOR, NOVEMBER 14 – DECEMBER 12

At the initiative of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, the event Days of Serbia in Republika Srpska this year will connect two cities and two cultural institutions – the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Arts Niš and the Gallery Sreten Stojanović Prijedor. The exhibition “Art Colony Sićevo, a Tradition that Unites Us – A Selection of Works from the Fund of the State Gallery of the Republic of Niš”, which will be officially opened on Friday, November 14 at 7 p.m. at the Sreten Stojanović Gallery in Prijedor, will mark the beginning of institutional cooperation and exchange, which will contribute to strengthening cultural ties in the region.

In 2025, the Gallery marks 120 years since the founding of the First Yugoslav Art Colony, the predecessor of today’s Art Colony Sićevo. The first recorded gathering of artists in the Balkans in a village near Niš at the beginning of the last century and working in nature was initiated by our famous painter Nadežda Petrović. Although the idea of ​​staying and creating in the open air every summer was not realized due to historical circumstances, the founder of Serbian modernism, a patriot dedicated to national ideals, and her colleagues from her Munich school days, supporters of the cultural unification of the South Slavic peoples, left a significant legacy to this part of the country by coming to the south of Serbia.

Only six decades later, following the example of the First Yugoslav, was the Sićevo Art Colony founded and has been held continuously at the end of summer every year since then. So far, 545 authors from the country and abroad have participated in its work, enriching the institution’s collection with 912 works, which represent lasting value and are a significant cultural heritage of the city.

The anniversary is an opportunity to gain insight into the rich, carefully formed collection from the 1970s to the present day, to point out the significance of the artistic undertaking of that time and, in the context of the wider cultural space, tradition, social and political circumstances, to examine the influence of the first colonial gathering on contemporary artistic reflections, understandings of fine arts and echoes in creativity. Accordingly, the concept of the exhibition at the Sreten Stojanović Gallery in Prijedor reflects the idea of ​​unity and Yugoslavism through a selection of paintings and sculptures created during the first thirty convocations, i.e. during the existence of Yugoslavia and the participation of artists from the former republics.

The exhibition Art Colony Sićevo – Tradition that unites us, by Emilija Bilić, senior curator, through a selection of works, provides insight into a part of the collection of the SLU Niš Gallery, valuable in artistic, historical and aesthetic terms, formed thanks to the Art Colony Sićevo until the 2000s. It points to the layered movements in art of the second half of the twentieth century and testifies to new phenomena, contemporary aspirations and modern tendencies. Heterogeneous in visual expression, research approaches and reflections, in the context of the time and environment in which they were created, without limitations in the thematic and motif sense, the presented works depict individual artistic styles, narrative codes, transposed attitudes and interests. Given the scope and continuous expansion, the diversity in terms of the authors’ generational affiliation, the environments they come from, the media they cultivate, the ideas and themes that occupy them, the Sićev collection, in the light of current developments in visual art, provides an opportunity for various types of curatorial studies, analyses and comparisons. By presenting paintings and sculptures by prominent protagonists of the Yugoslav art scene, the work of a unique cultural entity and the significance that the Sićevci Colony, which originated from the achievements of the First Yugoslav Art Colony, had, has been seen to a certain extent. Its noble mission and value oblige us to preserve tradition, careful selection of participants, adequate care and preservation of exhibits, as well as creating opportunities for their presentation on a larger scale.

The exhibition will be open to the public until December 12.