70 – 70^th Anniversary of the Museum of Applied Art in Belgrade

The Museum of Applied Art in Belgrade will mark the 70^th anniversary of its founding on 6^th November 2020. The Museum was founded in 1950 with a special task of systematically protecting, collecting, scientifically processing, acclaiming and publishing an extraordinarily rich area of ​​Serbian cultural heritage, primarily historical and later contemporary, such as applied art and design. The celebration of seven decades of the Museum’s existence and operation will take place in the context of unforeseen circumstances imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, due to which the Museum will be unable to organise the usual opening ceremony on the occasion of the Museum Day. The exhibition 70 – 70^th Anniversary of the Museum of Applied Art in Belgrade, which has been prepared for the occasion, will be open to visitors in a special mode and with the implementation of all protection measures from Thursday, 12^th November 2020.

The exhibition 70 – 70^th Anniversary of the Museum of Applied Art in Belgrade is primarily based on documentary material through which the Museum’s activities are documented and historicised starting from its founding in 1950 until the end of the second decade of the 21^st century. Like many other national and world museums, the Museum of Applied Art has passed through several different stages of development and operation. Each of the stages has reflected the complex relations of changing real practices of applied art and design through a certain Museum’s discourse, and in the background of provocations from the field of culture, society and politics. The history of the Museum as well as the wider museological, historical and artistic aspects of its operation were presented at the exhibition through documentary material, primarily that related to the Museum’s exhibiting and programme activities.

The exhibition consists of two segments, a documentary one, titled Documents, and an illustrative one, titled The Museum Poster. The first exhibition segment, Documents, shows the history and chronology of the Museum’s activities. A wide range of the Museum’s activities, diversity of its collections as well as various happenings, exhibitions, personalities and events will be presented through the documentation of the Museum’s nurtured programme identity and continual operation in the course of 70 years. The second exhibition segment, The Museum Poster, consists of selected museum posters which, as a very indicative and communicative type of graphic design, convincingly illustrate the varied and diverse activities that the Museum was engaged in during 70 years of its existence and operation.

A special event is planned to take place during the exhibition. It will be a concept within the concept – a presentation of the designer of the week and the artefact of the week on the Museum’s website and at the exhibition.

Realisation of the exhibition segment Documents: Ljiljana Miletić Abramović, MA, Director of the Museum and museum advisor; Draginja Maskareli, senior curator; Mioljub Kušić, curator and Srdjan Rakonjac, documentalist, in cooperation with the curators of the Museum’s Art Collections Department.

Curator of the exhibition segment The Museum Poster: Slobodan Jovanović, senior curator

Exhibition visual identity: Borut Vild

Members of the Organizing Committee of the celebration of the 70^th anniversary of the Museum of Applied Art’s founding are as follows: prof. Zoran Blažina, graphic designer; prof. Zoran Bulajić, architect, Chairman of the Museum Board of Trustees; prof. Dragan Bulatović, PhD, art historian and museologist; prof. Čedomir Vasić, visual artist; academician Milan Lojanica, architect; prof. Miodrag Marković, PhD, art historian, corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU); Ljiljana Miletić Abramović, MA, art historian, Director of the Museum; Dušan Milovanović, art historian; Radmila Milosavljević, architect; Slavimir Stojanović, graphic designer and Igor Todorović, fashion designer.