On the occasion of marking the 175th anniversary of the founding of Gallery of Matica Srpska, the national museum institution will present a new monograph Pride of the Nation: 175 Years of The Gallery of Matica Srpska, by Tijana Palkovljević, PhD, today at 7 p.m. The monograph, through a large number of documentary photographs and reproductions of works of art, presents the history of the institution and indicates its role in the creation of national identity, which we will refer to in the rest of the text.
In October last year, the European Capital of Culture title year, the Gallery of Matica Srpska began a one-year celebration of a significant jubilee with a large exhibition Uroš Predić. A Life Dedicated to Beauty and Art. With the exhibition, a step forward was made in the participatory approach and method of presentation, because the exhibition is accessible to all categories of society, in the spirit of European values of tolerance. This year, the anniversary celebration continues, and the weekend ahead brings us the finale of a major exhibition of national importance, which you can see until 12 February. We invite you to expert guidance on 11 February, which is also the day of the death of the great Serbian artist Uroš Predić. The audience will be guided through the unusual exhibition by the author Snežana Mišić, PhD, at 1 p.m., and the curatorial guidance by Goran Vujkov is scheduled at 5 p.m. On Sunday, 12 February, the last day of the exhibition, the audience will be led by Prof. Igor Borozan, PhD, while Snežana Mišić, PhD, will introduce you to the works at 5 p.m.
During the spring and summer, the Gallery of Matica Srpska plans to reconstruct the exhibition space for a new permanent exhibition of Serbian contemporary art, and we are also expecting the opening of the Dragiša Brašovan Gift Collection exhibition at the end of May, which will present objects of applied art, paintings, sculptures and drawings left to the Gallery as a gift in 2020 by his heirs. At the end of summer, the implementation of the One Epoch, Two Artists, Three Paintings exhibition is planned in cooperation with the Austrian national museums, and we will have the opportunity to see the works by Gustav Klimt and Paja Jovanović, which will also promote bilateral cooperation between the Republic of Austria and the Republic of Serbia. October is the month when the Gallery of Matica Srpska will celebrate its birthday with a retrospective exhibition of works by Vasa Pomorišac.
‘For me, the anniversary is the end of an era of 25 years during which we successfully transformed the institution from a traditional and conservative museum into a modern museum open to all. It was a period in which we implemented numerous dreams: renovated the building, improved storage and display conditions, enriched the collection with 3,330 works, made 306 exhibitions and published 224 publications. However, the most important step forward was that we managed to achieve numerous international partnerships and initiate cooperation and exchange of exhibitions with numerous European museums. The jubilee is truly a moment to celebrate and proudly highlight everything achieved because a lot of good things have been done, and we can say that we have become the pride of the nation,’ said Tijana Palkovljević Bugarski, PhD, in an interview for Visit Novi Sad.
The Gallery of Matica Srpska is truly the pride of the nation. It is one of the oldest and richest national museums, founded in 1847 in Budapest as part of Matica Srpska, as the oldest literary, scientific and artistic institution. It has been located in Gallery Square since 1968 and is one of the must-see institutions for Novi Sad tourists. The benefactor Sava Tekelija bequeathed his entire property to the Matica Srpska, which included a valuable collection of portraits, and afterwards the gifts continued and the collection grew. This is how the Museum of Matica Srpska was born, which began operating in 1933, when its collections – artistic, archaeological, numismatic and ethnographic – were presented to the public. Later, all the collections except the art collection were transferred to the Vojvodina Museum, and the art collection was the foundation of the newly founded institution, called the Gallery
of Matica Srpska. Today, the institution, which is the custodian of its rich cultural heritage, is proudly celebrating the 175 years of existence with a unique programme that the audience of Novi Sad can only experience in the city of culture, which deservedly held the title of European Capital of Culture.
Author: Marina Marić
Photo: Vladimir Veličković
