Exhibition "Jovan Kratohvil. Composition 100/24"

The exhibition 'JOVAN KRATOHVIL - COMPOSITION 100/24' will be held at the National Museum of Serbia from November 15, 2024, to January 26, 2025.

The retrospective exhibition of Jovan Kratohvil (1924 - 1998) is organized on the occasion of the artist's 100th birthday anniversary and sufficient time passed since his absence, in order to comprehensively review his rich and diverse artistic opus for the first time.

The National Museum of Serbia will open the exhibition on Friday, November 15, at 6 p.m., with the belief that only the exhibition is a true opportunity for direct encounter, experience, understanding, re-examination, summarization, and possible repositioning of Jovan Kratohvil's artistic legacy.

The exhibition setup of Jovan Kratohvil - Composition 100/24 for the first time unifies his most significant works from all creative phases, created from the 1940s to the 1980s. Starting from partisan art and socialist realism art, through the journey towards abstract expression within socialist aestheticism and modernism, through explorations of work in different materials, all the way to pioneering achievements of sculptures made in transparent polyester.

The exhibition curator, Lidija Ham Milovanovic, curator of the Yugoslav Sculpture Collection of the National Museum of Serbia, has selected a total of 100 exhibits, among which sculptures are dominant. Also presented are Kratohvil's paintings, graphics, and drawings, along with documentary exhibits about public monuments. Considering that Jovan Kratohvil often named his works 'Composition' with an added serial number in the year of creation, and the exhibition setup as a new spatial composition has adopted a title that follows the artist's practice.

The selected material is mostly owned by the Kratohvil family, and along with works from the National Museum of Serbia, the setup 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 emblematic works by Kratohvil, as well as a selection of achievements that have marked his creative phases from the beginnings to works that we believe represent the last, simultaneously most inventive starting point of his artistic quests.