Belgrade became richer by another exhibition space in early December. A salon of naïve and marginal art was opened on the ground floor of the Serbian Ministry of Culture at Vlajkovićeva St.
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Covering the period from 1939-2006, some 70 works - including paintings, sculptures and graphics by Serbian masters of native and marginal art, as well as representative works of naïve art from other European countries from the collection of the Naïve Art Museum in Jagodina - were put on display in an area covering some 250 square meters.
The salon - a specific section of the Museum in Jagodina - is the only institution in Serbia that collects, studies, exhibits, publishes and protects works of naïve and marginal art from Serbia and other countries such as Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia...
Among the displayed works by the greats of Serbian naïve art, such as Savo Sekulić, Emerik Feješ, Ilija Bosilj Bašičević… the exhibit also presents works by Ivan Generalić, Franjo Mraz from Hlebine, Ivan Rabuzin and other renowned masters of naïve art from neighboring countries. |
- The multi-layered, authentic, primitive, neo-primitive, and self-taught naïve art of Serbia are today perceived as part of the continual evolution of the contemporary art scene. Although the prevailing view is that naïve art is as old as society and that its source is to be found in the wealth of creative folk work, the awareness of its artistic existence as a separate entity was articulated through the creative efforts of its foremost artists - whose works are now considered classics.
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The break with descriptive representations of perceived reality revealed new motifs and new creative possibilities whereby the modern artist used his spiritual energy to discover and explore corresponding elements, which he then transposed into his works, courageously positioning them to form new relations and interpreting them in a different context,
- says the Director of the Jagodina Museum of Naïve Art Nina Krstić, curator of the salon's collection and concept. |
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Tradition, folklore, a feeling for the communal, idyllic settings, and leisure imposed by long winter nights are some of the preconditions for the development of naïve art. Influenced by the classic works of Serbian naïve art, the Oparić, Kovačica and Uzdin schools emerged in their wake.
Under the influence of Janko Brašić from the village of Oparić, the doyen of Serbian naïve artists, a number of painters appeared in his and surrounding villages such as Martinković, Jovanović and others. A group of painters-peasants from Kovačica gained worldwide fame for this Banat village. The first to begin painting were Martin Paluška, Jan Sokol and Mihajlo Bireš, followed by Jan Knjazovic and Martin Jonaš.
In the Banat village of Uzdin, Anjuka Maran started to transfer onto canvas the folk costumes and cloths she used to weave. Soon, others followed: Marija Balan, Florika Puja and Mariora Motorožesku. The majority of the above-mentioned naïve artists began to create works that were exclusively attached to their environment.
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Though some of these artists had been born and raised in the country and lived in the city by force of circumstance, their painting for the most part dwelled on the subjects and motifs linked with country life. There was also a larger group comprised of those whose experience and artistic expression had to do with urban areas. However, a most unusual choice of motifs were found in the paintings of a Novi Sad button and combmaker, Emerik Feješ, who transubstantiated his dream of travelling by 'reproducing' postcards of European and world cities. |
"He painted them by 'reproducing' them, adding non-existent street sections and houses to their squares, or erasing that which he disliked. The result was a painting quite different from its model." He died without ever having left his humble abode, leaving behind hundreds of paintings on paper of streets and squares with lavish facades, all of them in famous metropolises.
| The Museum of Naïve Art in Jagodina was founded in 1960 as the first museological institution specialising in collecting, safeguarding, protecting, displaying, studying and publishing works of naïve art. Initially, the collection consisted of works of artists from Serbia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia, and beginning in 1994, the museum expanded its collection to include works by foreign artists working in the same genres. Today, the Museum is an institution with a rich collection that includes some 2,000 works from the year 1935 to the present. The Naïve Art Museum is also one of Europe's largest documentation centres for the study of naïve art. In this particular field, it is the largest in the Balkan region and is among the most significant in the world. | |
