The exhibitions “Consciously Abandoning Reality: Ilija Bosilj and Sava Sekulić” and “Lazar Vujaklija: Protest Against Himself” opened last evening at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Republika Srpska, as part of a collaboration between this cultural institution and the Museum of Naive and Marginal Art from Belgrade.
Through a dialogue of visionary, authentic and strongly individualized oeuvres by artists Ilija Bosilj, Sava Sekulić and Lazar Vujaklija, the public was presented with exhibition projects that raise questions of imagination, marginalized positions and new interpretations of 20th-century art.
Although different in concept, structure and the artistic positions they present, both exhibitions are united by the intention to view significant oeuvres from the perspective of contemporary art history and to reintroduce them into the active space of professional and public interpretation.
Tanja Đaković, Assistant Minister for Culture of Republika Srpska, told reporters that these two exhibitions remind us that art has the power to question the time in which we live, to encourage reflection, and to continuously establish a dialogue between the past and the present.
“The special value of tonight’s event certainly lies in the fact that it was created as a result of cooperation between the Museum of Contemporary Art of Republika Srpska and the Museum of Naive and Marginal Art,” Đaković said.
She added that this cooperation demonstrates how important it is to connect cultural institutions, exchange knowledge and jointly present exceptionally valuable artistic heritage to a wider audience.
The Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Republika Srpska, Sarita Vujković, said that exhibitions previously presented in New York, Paris and the most important European centers have now also come to Banja Luka, adding that Ilija Bosilj is among the top five Art Brut artists in the world.
“We can proudly say that we have great figures of Serbian painting when it comes to Art Brut and naive art, artists who were self-taught and created their work outside the developmental lines of contemporary art that shaped the second half of the 20th century,” Vujković said.
She noted that almost everyone knows of Lazar Vujaklija, but that there has not been an exhibition of his work for 40 years.
“It has been 30 years since his death, and only now has a retrospective been staged that places this artist within a different scale of value than the one he had during his lifetime,” Vujković said.
The curator of the exhibition “Consciously Abandoning Reality: Ilija Bosilj and Sava Sekulić,” Ivana Bašićević Antić, said that these are two authors currently being exhibited extensively around the world and that they have entered prestigious museum collections.
One of the curators of the exhibition “Lazar Vujaklija: Protest Against Himself,” Danica Đorđević Janković, emphasized that he was the author of the first Belgrade mural and a participant in the Venice Biennale, and that he remains remembered as a creator who defies simple classifications and terminological definitions.
Janković said that his authentic visual language, a kind of painterly alphabet and his continuous exploration of media make him one of the important, yet insufficiently researched, figures of Yugoslav and Serbian art in the second half of the 20th century.
The Banja Luka public will be able to view the exhibitions until September 3.
Source: RTRS
