COLLECTION

About the collection

The collection of the Musem began to form around the time of the establishing of Modern Gallery and by the time of the opening of Museum it counted 3.500 works of art. Today the fund consits of 7.600 works and represents the most relevant collection of art from the Yugoslav art space, which existed from 1900 to 1991. Today, the policy of the Museum of Contemporary Art is based on the observation? of contemporary art in Serbia, the Balkan region, and, as much as it is possible, in Europe and worldwide. The museum supplements its collections by purchasing from artists (either from current exhibitions or from studios), and through gifts and legacies.

The Collection of the Museum is divided into several subcollections:

 

Collection of Paintings from 1900 to 1945

The Collection comprises Yugoslav and Serbian painting from the beginning of the 20th century until the end of World War II. It consists of more than 900 works of art by 138 authors. The total number of works includes a special collection of 120 watercolors, pastels and gouaches.

The basic concept of this collection was built around the program of an all-encompassing representation of the historical period which ends with the beginning of World War II and the establishing of new socio-political context, which will set a new and different course in the development of art production. The collection provides a deep insight into the genesis and the stages of development of Yugoslav and Serbian modernism, its thematic, stylistic and poetic totality, individual opuses and relevant works.

The beginnings of modern painting in Serbia and Yugoslavia are primarily marked by impressionist impulses featured in the works of Slovenian and Serbian impressionists (M. Milovanović, K. Milićević, M. Glišić). A special position in the works of the pioneers of modernism belongs to the paintings of Nadežda Petrović (Funeral in Sićevo, 1905; Gypsy Woman with a Scarf, 1905) which are characterized by their natural coloring, the audacity of vision and spontaneity of gesture.

The beginning of the 1920s was marked by the domination of Cezannesque and Cuboconstructivistic tendencies with special emphasis on the shape and the structure, which is seen in the works of Sava Šumanović (Drunken Boat, 1927), Milo Milunović (Bistro 1, 1922), Tone Kralj (Rural Wedding, 1926), Vasa Pomorišac (Card Players, 1924), Ivan Radović (Houses, 1922). The first example of abstract art of cubofuturistic and expressionist orientation are seen in the works of Milan Konjović (Cubist Still Life, 1922) and Jovan Bijelić (Struggle between Day and Night, 1921).

The art of the 1930s was created in the spirit of esthetic polarization and ideological conflicts. On one hand, the “pure art” of strong and expressive coloring dominated the works of Jovan Bijelić (Little Girl in a Baby Carriage, 1933), Milan Konjović (Little Ministrant, 1936), Zora Petrović, Ignjat Job, Petar Dobrović. Moreover, the “intimistic art” of a poetized vision of reality propounded by the likes of Marko Čelebonović (Interior with Plaster Head, 1937), Ljubica Sokić and Kosta Hakman also played an important role. On the other hand, a socially engaged and political art which neglects the dominant “Art for Art’s Sake” emerged in the works of the artists gathered around an art group from Zagreb called “The Earth” (Krsto Hegedušić, Marijan Detoni, Vinko Grdan, Ivan Tabaković) and the Belgrade group “Life” (Đ. Andrejević-Kun, Đurđe Teodorović). Surrealism and Post-Surrealism are featured in the collection in the works of Radojica Živanović, Milena Pavlović Barili and Stane Kregar.

Collection of Paintings after 1945

The collection consists of 2.045 works of Serbian and Yugoslav art. The integral part of the Collection is a special collection of watercolors, pastels and gouaches, which numbers 321 works from that period. The Collection follows the complex genesis of Serbian and Yugoslav painting from the period of the short dominance of socialist realism dogma (1945-1950) and the first indications of the emergence of late modernism to current tendencies in painting. Chronologically, the Collection maintains a continuity with the Collection of paintings from 1900-1945, which is visible in the works of Jovan Bijelić, Zora Petrović, Marko Čelebonović and Ivan Tabaković.
 
The highest achievements of the expressive figuration of the 1950s and 1960s are present in the evocation of national epic poetry in the works of Petar Lubarda (Fantastic Landscape, 1951; Gusle Player, 1952), in the existential painting of Gabrijel Stupica (Big Bride, 1965) and Mario Pregelj (Fantastic Dining Table, 1966), in the socio-critical engagement of Krsto Hegedušić (Dead Waters, 1956) etc. The works of Milan Popović, Dado Đurić and Vladimir Veličković are prominent in the realm of Magical Realism, whereas the Neo-Dadaist objects, assemblages and “integral painting” of Leonid Šejka represent a phenomenon of its own kind.

The genesis of abstract painting after 1945 reflects a very complex situation which points to the oscillations concerning various formal and conceptual models of painting. A distinct and widespread tendency was represented by the “abstract landscape painting” or associative painting which has a starting point in the experience of the landscape, or the reflection on the landscape, which falls in the spans from Expressionist to Post-Informel painting. The most prominent amongst these artists are: Miodrag Protić (Imaginary Landscape, 1962), Stojan Ćelić (Delicate Remnants of the Soil, 1966), Oton Gliha (Gromače 22-65, 1965), Janez Bernik and others. The collection features the protagonists of Abstract Expressionism such as Filo Filipović (Dyptich a, b, 1972), Edo Murtić (White Base, 1964) and Petar Omčikus, as well as the exponents of Informel from Zagreb and Belgrade Ivo Gatin (Purple Surface, 1950-1960), Eugen Feler (Malampia, 1963), Mića Popović (Base, 1963), Vera Božičković-Popović, Branko Protić, Vladislav Todorović, Đuro Seder and others. The emergence of geometric abstraction is most frequently associated with the EXAT 51 group from Zagreb, which creates in the spirit of Constructivism, where the picture is overcome as a two-dimensional facet and becomes open to objects and ambients produced from contemporary industrial materials (Ivan Picelj, Candidus, 1966). The predomination of the conceptual over visual aspects, something very close to minimalism, can be seen in the works of Julije Knifer (Composition I, 1960-1962) and Josip Vaništa (White Painting with Silver Line, 1964).

As a reaction to the predominance of abstract tendencies, the then current trends of Pop-Art, New Figuration and Narrative Figuration emerged in the mid 1960s in Belgrade. These trends are represented in the collection in the works of these artists: Dušan Otašević (Comrade Tito, White Violet, Our Youth Loves You, 1969), Predrag Nešković (Elements of War, 1966), Radomir Reljić (Europa Terra Incognita, 1968), Bojan Bem, Dragoš Kalajić and others. This painting would serve as a basis for the emergence of subsequent tendencies such as Photorealism, Hyperrealism, New Classicism and alike phenomena which dominates during the 1970s (H. Gvardijančič, A. Cvetković, B. Damjanovski and others).

The so called “New Painting”, which emerged at the beginning of the 1980s, is seen in the paintings of Tugomir Šušnik (Painting 2, 1982), Tahir Lušić (Grid Shadow Fiftees..,.1986), Andraž Šalamun, Željko Kipke, pictures-objects of Mileta Prodanović and Jože Slak, cold “non-expressionist” paintings of Marija Dragojlović and the like. The painting of the last decade of the 20th century is represented in the works of Uroš Đurić, Biljana Đurđević and others.

Collection of Sculptures

The collection consists of 752 works by 196 Serbian and Yugoslav artists from the beginning of the 20th century until today. The collection provides a basis for the comprehension of every significant phenomenon, poetics, author and work relevant to the development of sculpture in the Yugoslav art space and in Serbia.

The creative work of Ivan Meštrović stands at the beginning of modern sculpture in Yugoslavia and is represented in the collection by robust expressive sculptures of the Big Widow (1907) and Torso of Banović Strahinja (1907) from the “Cycle of Kosovo” (on a permanent loan from the National Musem). Toma Rosandić (Harp Player, 1934), Antun Augustinčić, Frano Kršinić and others who worked under the influence of Ivan Meštrović, but inclined more to the esthetics of academism. The intimistic sculpture from the 1930s most frequently has a chamber quality, and the most important examples of this movement are female nudes and figurines by Petar Palavičini, as well as young female figures and naively simplified figures of animals by Risto Stijović (Smiling Girl, 1925). The constructive art took various shapes ranging from the expressive, wellrounded figures by Slovenian sculptors Lojze Dolinar and France Kralj, over discreetly stylized portraits by Petar Palavičini (Rastko Petrović, 1922) i Sreten Stojanović (Portrait of a Friend, 1921), to emphatically “cubized” figures by Dušan Jovanović-Đukin (Girl with Mandoline, 1936-1938) created in Paris during the 1930s.

The period after World War II was marked by the domination of late modernism, in which an abstract sculpture of free forms, concerned only with plastic-esthetic issues and the use of new materials, is predominant. In this respect, the pioneering role was played Olga Jevrić – with her sculptures comprised of freely grouped cement masses interconnected by iron armature (Complementary Form, 1956/7) – as well as Dušan Džamonja (Sculpture XVI, 1961) and Vojin Bakić (Shapes of Light, 1964). The Rationality and coldness of the manufacturing process are common characteristics featured of the works of Vjenčeslav Rihter (Disassembled Sphere, 1967), Ivan Kožarić (L-50, 1965), Aleksandar Srnec, Velizar Mihić, Mladen Galić and others. These sculptures feature various tendencies within the geometric abstraction (Neoconstructivism, Protominimalism), which relates to the urban surroundings, the new technologies and materials (aluminium, glass, plastic). Olga Jančić (Motherhood II, 1957), Ana Bešlić, Oto Logo and others have consistently explored the issues of insulated organic form, which is the extention of the tradition of vitalist sculpture.

Figurative sculpture, which is characterized by transposed and modernized anthropomorphism, represents the other significant tendency in the sculpture after 1945. Its main proponents are Kosta Angeli Radovani, who sculpts female nudes as a symbol of fertility and vitalism (Dunja II, 1961/62), Matija Vuković, who depicts dramatic figures with emphasized physical deformities (Mother with a Dead Child, 1955), Nandor Glid and Vida Jocić, with figures of the “victims” from concentration camps, and Branko Ružić (Bird, 1962), who produces associative sculpture in wood.

The collection also features works of the protagonists of the so-called “New Serbian Sculpture”, which, from the beginning of the 1980s, introduces new models of sculptural thinking, and contributes to the shift of the logic of sculpture towards the object, the narrativization and the spacialization, which is seen in the works of Mrđan Bajić (Accumulation, 1988), Zdravko Joksimović (I Remember, 2001) and Dobrivoje Bata Krgović (Sculpture from the Ceiling to the Floor, 1993).

Collection of Prints and Drawings

The collection of prints represents a systematic insight into the Serbian and Yugoslav graphic art in the period from 1900 until today. The collection consists of 1880 graphic sheets, which help us scrutinize various processes characteristic of the development of this art in the 20th century, from the surpassing of the notion of print as a “noble craft”, to the emergence of the “combined technique”, to the change of the status of graphic imprint due to the emergence of the digital reproduction techniques. The most distinctive part of the collection represents the print production published in avant-garde magazines (Zenit, Dada-tank, Ut) during the 1920s (Mihailo Petrov, Avgust Černigoj), as well as political prints between two world wars, which expresses progressive socio-political attitudes and stands for one of the leading art forms of that period (Sergije Glumac, Marian Detoni, Krsto Hegedušić, Đorđe Andrejević-Kun, Pivo Karamatijević and others). As for the second half of the 20th century, the collection observes the most relevant tendencies (graphic of the “Belgrade Circle”, Neoconstructivism) and individual opuses of Marko Krsmanović, Bogdan Kršić, Miroslav Šutej and others.

The collection of drawings is comprised of 1345 works of Serbian and Yugoslav artists from the beginning of the 20th century up until today. The collection is given a special significance by the visual experimentation of Belgrade surrealists (drawings, collages, assemblages, decalcomania, cadavre exquis), the examples of constructivist art (A. Černigoj, E. Stepančič), as well as the drawings by Sava Šumanović, Petar Dobrović, Ivan Radović i Dušan Janković. The most prominent works from the second half of the 20th century come from artists who paid special attention to drawing as a media per se – Ivan Tabaković, Leonid Šejka, Dado Đurić, Vladimir Veličković, Dragan Lubarda, Radomir Reljić, Bora Iljovski, Dušan Otašević, Stojan Ćelić.
The collection of foreign prints is comprised of 323 works of art. The creation of this collection was initiated by the graphic works of Jacques Villon and Albert Gleizes, which the Museum obtained as a gift from the Paris Museum of Modern Art in 1965 on the occasion of the opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art. The collection has further been complemented through the cooperation with galleries, publishing houses, graphic studios and manifestations. The collection features sheets and drawings by many famous 20th century artists: Joan Miro, Antoni Tapies, Hans Hartung, Adolph Gotlieb, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Richard Hamilton, Max Bill, Josef Albers, Lucio Fontana, Victor Vasarely, David Hockney, Eduardo Paolozzi, Piero Dorazio, Michelangelo Pistoleto, Frank Stella and others.

Collection of New Art Media

The collection of new art media consists of 218 works produced in the medium of photography, film, video, digital media, installation, text, objects and other. The collection was started at the end of the 1970s, when the proliferation of the technical media (film, photography, video) within the Conceptual art, but also in the other fields of art, caused the creation of a special collection which would reflect the establishing of these media as equally valuable modes of artistic expression.

The collection covers a huge time span, from the exceptionally valuable photographic experiments of Belgrade surrealists from the beginning of the 1930s (the photograms of Vane Živadinović Bor and Marko Ristić), to art photography and Conceptual art, and further to the new art media. Conceptual art in Yugoslavia is represented in the collection by many relevant works, of which the most important are video performances by Marina Abramović (Freeing of Memory, 1976) and Raša Todosijević (Was ist Kunst, 1978), the photo documentation of the projects of the OHO group, photo performances and films by Neša Paripović (Examples of Analytic Sculpture, 1977; Rhythm, 1981), the works of Braco Dimitrijević, Zoran Popović, Goran Trbuljak, Balint Szombathy and others. The domain of video art comprises the works of Sanja Iveković, Dalibor Martinis, Zoran Todorović, Milica Tomić and others. The collection also contains the first Web Art project in Serbia, a work named Absolute Sale by the Association Apsolutno.

The collection features the works of foreign artists, among which the most distinct are Hans Richter’s film Dreams Money Cannot Buy (1947), a photographic map by Clara E. Siprrell titled “Travels through Yugoslavia”, portfolio of the American photographer Paul Strand, a collection of works by Fluxus artists (George Maciunas, Ken Friedman, Hannah Wilke and others), video works by Jayce Salloum, Anika Ström etc.