Tag: serbian art

Culture, The Belgradist

Danica Crnogorčević: the trad villainess of the Balkan Arts scene

How a trad Christian pop folk singer became the most controversial person in ex-Yugoslavia When you listen to Danica Crnogorčević’s music, you will be instantly amazed by her voice. Wonderfully colourful and powerful, she comes across as a Montenegrin Enya, and in a lot of ways the two share a lot in common. Like Enya, she cuts an almost impossibly wholesome figure: a church-going (her … Continue reading Danica Crnogorčević: the trad villainess of the Balkan Arts scene

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Culture, Politics

Pedo-Satanist elites and all that: How to make it as an Eastern European creative?

It rarely happens that I am transfixed by art, however almost two decades ago, I could not stop staring at very haunting painting of Santa Clause on a morgue table, and portraits of children, blankly looking at me while sitting uncomfortably, scantily clad, in a slaughterhouse-like setting. I was in one of the public art galleries in Central Belgrade, which, as galleries around the world … Continue reading Pedo-Satanist elites and all that: How to make it as an Eastern European creative?

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Balkans, Culture, Reviews, Travel

Terra, Kikinda: How a local artist used home turf to create a world’s best terracotta art collection

As a twenty-something third year student at Belgrade’s art Academy in 1960s, Slobodan Kojić dreamt big. A Kikinda native, he envisaged creating an art colony which would make use of his native city’s clay pits – which powered the city’s brick and roof tile industry – so artists could create majestic, grandiose works of terracotta. The use or clay in the arts in what is … Continue reading Terra, Kikinda: How a local artist used home turf to create a world’s best terracotta art collection

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Balkans, Guide to Belgrade, The Belgradist, Travel

Belgrade, Peasantville

As Kingdom of Serbia was late to industrialise, modern Belgrade was a city built in large part with the money of proud peasants and cattle (esp. pig) merchants, more than happy to celebrate their rural heritage and especially the ornate dresses of Serbian villagers – this was especially popular as Orientalist and Romantic art, as well as Art Nouveau started looking for something to break … Continue reading Belgrade, Peasantville

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Culture, Hidden Belgrade, Life, Photography, The Belgradist

Why so dense?

The current pandemic, as insane as it is, highlighted problems of dense, large cities, where sharing tight public spaces is the only way of survival. From public transport carriages to lifts in high rises, we cannot escape density and the risks it brings. On top of that, the race to density, in making housing and facilities ever tighter, and more cost-efficient for their owners has … Continue reading Why so dense?

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Culture, Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

How Ivan Meštrović brought the Kosovo Myth to life

In 1911, Ivan Meštrović, a Croatian sculptor raised in Dalmatian backwater and educated in Vienna, who was hailed as one of the greatest of his generation and a successor to Rodin,  caused the first of many political stirs in his life. Instead of exhibiting his monumental, secession-inspired works to show the glory and grandeur of the imperial Austro-Hungary during the 1911 international art exhibition in … Continue reading How Ivan Meštrović brought the Kosovo Myth to life

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Culture, Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Hidden Belgrade (42): Art for The People!

Public art in Belgrade is back in fashion with many ambitious projects completed and planned. They range from the sculptural/architectural collaboration between Turner prize-winning Richard Deacon and widely acclaimed local sculptor Mrđan Bajić to the future gigantic monument to  the founder of the most successful of Serbian medieval states, Stefan Nemanja, made by the acclaimed Russian sculptor Alexander Rukavishnikov. There have also recently been two … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (42): Art for The People!

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Culture, Pokretači, The Nutshell Media

Pokretači #57 Dr Ana Russell-Omaljev – Contemporary Balkan Art / London

Dr Ana Russell-Omaljev o radu na promociji kreativaca sa Balkana u Londonu kroz Contemporary Balkan Art (CoBA) i naporima da se percepcija našeg regiona ispravi kroz sjajnu umetnost koja se ovde stvara. CoBA takodje organizuje Southeast European Future Festival čije je najskorije izdanje bilo u septembru 2019-e u Rich Mix kulturnom centru u Shoreditch-u. Beleške Anina knjiga o identitetima u Srbiji Divided We Stand: Discourses … Continue reading Pokretači #57 Dr Ana Russell-Omaljev – Contemporary Balkan Art / London

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Hidden Belgrade, The Belgradist

Hidden Belgrade (29): Voždovac’s Surrealist Church

From the outside the Church of St Constantine and St Helen in the suburb of Voždovac looks like a slightly more elegant standard-issue Serbian Orthodox church, with a demure grey façade and a prominent bell-tower. The current structure, an update of the church built in early 20th Century and damaged in WWII was designed by Dragomir Tadić, a renowned Serbian church architect of the late … Continue reading Hidden Belgrade (29): Voždovac’s Surrealist Church

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