Exhibition "Jovan Kratochvil. Composition 100/24"

The exhibition "JOVAN KRATOCHVIL - COMPOSITION 100/24"

National Museum of Serbia November 15, 2024 - January 26, 2025

A retrospective exhibition of Jovan Kratochvil (1924-1998) is being held on the occasion of the artist's 100th birthday and sufficient time since his absence, in order to comprehensively view his rich and diverse artistic oeuvre for the first time.

On Friday, November 15 at 6 p.m., the National Museum of Serbia will open the exhibition with the belief that only through the exhibition can one truly encounter, experience, understand, re-examine, summarize, and possibly reposition Jovan Kratochvil's artistic legacy.

The setting of the exhibition Jovan Kratochvil - Composition 100/24 brings together for the first time his most significant works from all creative phases, created between the 1940s and 1980s. Starting from partisan art and socialist realism, moving towards abstract expression within socialist aesthetics and modernism, through explorations of work in various materials, to pioneering achievements in sculptures made of transparent polyester.

The exhibition's curator, Lidija Ham Milovanovic, curator of the Collection of Yugoslav Sculpture at the National Museum of Serbia, has selected a total of 100 exhibits, among which sculpture is dominant. Additionally, Kratochvil's paintings, graphics, and drawings are presented, along with documentary exhibits on public monuments. Considering that Jovan Kratochvil often titled his works Composition followed by a serial number in the year of creation, the exhibition's layout, as a new spatial composition, bears a name that follows the artist's practice.

The selected material is largely owned by the Kratochvil family, and in addition to works from the National Museum of Serbia, the exhibition includes works from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, the Museum of Yugoslavia, the Faculty of Fine Arts, the National Museum of Sumadija in Kragujevac, the Contemporary Gallery from Zrenjanin, Muzej Zepter, as well as three works in private ownership. The selection of exhibits includes Kratochvil's emblematic works, as well as a selection of achievements that have characterized his creative phases from the beginnings to works that we believe represent the final, simultaneously most inventive outcome of his artistic quest.