TRADITION AS A CRITERION

11 – 28 December 2023

Exhibition opening: Monday, 11 December 2023, at 6 pm

Project author and exhibition curator: Dijana Milašinović Marić, art historian

Exhibition associate: Darko Kuzmanović, sculptor

Catalog design: Zoran Borenović, designer

Organizers: ULUPUDS and MAA

The project Tradition as a Criterion, authored by Dijana Milašinović Marić, is conceived as a long-term reflection on the original folk tradition that is critically observed and taken as an incentive and inspiration. The idea is to map Serbian regions, localities and areas over the course of several years, to choose the original motifs which artists of diverse interests and sensibilities can freely render and interpret in their works. The goal is to observe in a studious and timely manner the potentials, wealth, peculiarities and manifestations of the heritage of a people that developed and existed in all kinds of conditions and influences, always striving to preserve its own being.

At the first exhibition of the Tradition as a Criterion project, fourteen guest artists were pointed towards the original forms of Serbian heritage in Kosovo and Metohija, in order to achieve an interaction with traditions through their own artistic expression. Artists of various academic training profiles, poetics and specializations, with enthusiasm and imbibed by the ardor of the challenge, have given complex answers, seeking an incentive, the initial thread to start the creative process. Most of the authors specifically created works for the exhibition, and there are also those whose oeuvre itself initially contains a visible interaction with tradition in the broadest sense of the connection and with its symbolic, associative, symbolic meaning.

Guest artists: Aleksandra Bogićević, Daliborka Djurić, Dragana Nikolajević, designers of textiles and contemporary clothing, Аna Miljković, mosaic artist, Valentina Savić, ceramic artist, Darko Kuzmanović, Djordje Arnaut, Željka Momirov, Ivana Milev, sculptors, Djordje Аlfirević, architect, Lidija Živković, conceptual artist, Zoran Borenović, designer, Marjana Borenović, Tamara Zečević, jewelry designer and philologist Ivana Bašić.