Kaleidoscope: Solarov / Kulić / Ugren / Marinkov
The Kaleidoscope exhibition was created out of the need for the collection of the Gallery to be looked at from a new perspective, through the metaphor of a kaleidoscope. Within it, the works of four artists of the same generation, who created in the same cultural and time context, and yet developed distinctly individual artistic poetics, are intertwined. These artists – Milan Solarov (1933–2019), Mladen Marinkov (1947–2023), Ratomir Kulić (1948), and Dragomir Ugren (1951) – were interconnected not only generationally, but through their profession and friendship as well. They shared their experiences of work in the museum institutions of Novi Sad, and each of them, as a benefactor, left a significant trace in the fund of The Gallery of Matica Srpska.
The works from their gift collections meet symbolically at the exhibition in the Gallery space entitled “The Golden Eye”, which was led for a long time by their common friend and benefactor of The GMS, Sava Stepanov. In that way, the exhibition connects not only their artistic opera, but also reconstructs the web of personal, professional, and cultural relations that shaped the artistic scene.
The kaleidoscope principle was applied in the very authorial approach to the exhibition: four Gallery experts – Dr Danilo Vuksanović, MSc Mirjana Brmbota, Luka Kulić, and MSc Goran Vujkov – took over one artist each, shaping the choice of both the works and interpretation from the perspective of an art historian, artist, and philosopher. That is how this intricate exhibitional unity, which both questions and connects different artistic poetics, was created.
The Kaleidoscope exhibition is a revision of four artistic opera of a kind, operating within a dialogue with the current permanent exhibition of The Gallery, REvision of the collection of GMS. In that process, the attention was directed towards both which connects artists in the context of life and culture, and also which separates them in their artistic expression, building a unique, multilayered image of the contemporary artistic scene.
The exhibition will be enriched by a versatile follow-up programme on Fridays at 19:00 in the form of author-led exhibition tours and talks with artists, and expert commentary on the weekends at 13:00 and 17:00. Furthermore, the exhibition will be accompanied by a programme for children and teenagers in the form of creative and artistic workshops on Saturdays in two time slots.
The realisation of the exhibition was provided by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia.
Milan Solarov (1933–2019) was an art historian and theorist, painter, and educator, as well as director of the Gallery of Matica Srpska, where he contributed to the modernization of museum practice. His drawings, gathered in the cycles Gryphonages and Lines of Continuity of Interwar Sculptural Poetics, represent two different yet interconnected lines of research – from the spontaneous gesture and the process of form creation to the reflection on its historical duration. While Gryphonages explore the line as a primary trace of movement and sensory experience, the other cycle examines, through architectural-sculptural compositions, the continuity and transformation of form over time. His numerous works were donated to the Gallery of Matica Srpska by his family in 2022, forming a donation collection.
Mladen Marinkov (1947–2023) was a sculptor and professor at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, as well as director of the Gallery of Fine Arts – Donation Collection of Rajko Mamuzić. His oeuvre is marked by a strong symbolic and archetypal expression, and his sculptures, executed in bronze, brass, and terracotta, range from recognizable ship-like forms and mythological motifs to abstract structures, equally powerful in both intimate and monumental formats. By donating his works to the Gallery of Matica Srpska in 2022, Marinkov rounded off his artistic path, leaving a lasting mark in its collection and in contemporary Serbian sculpture.
Ratomir Kulić (1948) is an art historian, conservator, and artist who, throughout his decades-long career, also served as a long-time curator and conservator at the Gallery of Matica Srpska. His work is directed toward exploring the language of art, and his artistic-theoretical practice is characterized by examining the relationship between form, duration, and historical continuity. Within the project Verbumprogram, which he developed with Vladimir Mationi since the mid-1970s, Kulić investigated language as an artistic medium, connecting poetry, theory, and visual structures. His work includes research into line, gesture, and the concept of continuity, as well as reflections on art within a broader cultural-historical framework. Kulić donated his works to the institution where he spent his entire professional career in 2024.
Dragomir Ugren (1951) is an artist, long-time curator, and former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, whose professional career unfolded at the intersection of artistic practice and museum work. Although grounded in painting, his practice transcends the boundaries of the medium through an interdisciplinary and intermedia approach, relying on minimalist forms, geometry, monochromy, and the exploration of visual effects of the color field. Ugren’s works, often presented as spatial units or wall installations, emerge in dialogue with contemporary art and aim, through reduced form and strong optical effects, to encourage a personal and experiential reading of the artwork. Dragomir Ugren donated his gift collection to the Gallery of Matica Srpska in 2025.
