Artists’ Studios
The Gallery of Matica srpska is thrilled to announce the grand opening of the exhibition Artists’ Studios, taking place on Friday, June 13 at 8:00 PM. The exhibition, which offers an authentic and intimate insight into the creative spaces of artists, is a result of the collaboration between the Gallery of Matica srpska and the Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute. Through carefully selected photographs, visitors will have the chance to step into the world of artists’ studios, places where art is born on a daily basis, where inspiration and work routine coexist in a visually intense environment.
Addressing those present at the opening will be Dr. Tijana Palkovljević Bugarski, Director of the Gallery of Matica srpska, curators Isabel Argerich Fernández and Óscar Muñoz Sánchez, and His Excellency Mr. Juan José Sanz Aparicio, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Spain to the Republic of Serbia.
Parts of an artist’s personality are etched into his works, while the rest is kept within his studio’s walls. But what have these artists’ fortresses hidden? What did the enchanted cycle of influence look like – the artist’s influence on the space, and the influence of the space on the artist and his works? Thanks to the medium that faithfully records moments and characters in eternity – the photograph, as well as the archive of the Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute, the audience will be able to take a look into the intimate spaces of Spanish artists’ studios.
By observing the photographs on display, the public will enter the artist’s world in a discreet, yet powerful way. Rooms of various dimensions and ambiences are shown – from humble, improvised workshops to bright studios full of colors, paintings, and personal belongings. The photographs also reveal cultural differences, as well as the universality of the artist’s calling – dedication, discovery and constant experimentation.
The studios in the photographs are not empty. There are artists in them, works in progress, artists’ tools spread around the room, members of their families or models being portrayed. Studios are centers which contain the concealed parts of an artist’s life, unfinished artworks, and the space itself speaks of their style of expression and living. This time we will have the opportunity to see artworks, which we are used to seeing in museums, in their places of origin, and by doing so observe them from an entirely different perspective.
Artists and their artworks have been immortalized using a camera lens by acclaimed masters of artistic photography in Spain. The displayed photographs – whether created by Mariano and Vicente Moreno, Ruiz Cernachi, Aurelio de Colmenares Orgaz, Count of Polentina, Cabré, Wunderlich, or Pando – are characterized by their documentary value and aesthetic qualities. The technical skill of the aforementioned photographers is perceptible through the expert knowledge of lighting and composition, as well as their ability to portray the personality of a painter or sculptor in symbiosis with the interior of the studio where they created.
Ninety photographs from the studios of Spanish artists will be shown alongside the selection of photographs which represent seven Serbian painters who are important for the collection of the Gallery of Matica srpska. The photographs lead us to places where private and public life meet, showcasing artists and their creative subjects like Sorolla, Maruja Mallo, Romero de Torres, and Javier Clavo, as well as Uroš Predić, Paja Jovanović, and Stevan Aleksić.
Summer in the Gallery of Matica srpska will be entirely marked by Hispanic culture, and the exhibition Artists’ Studios will serve as an introduction to the traditional manifestation Summer on the Gallery Square. This year it brings the theme “A Hot Artistic Summer: From Spain to Latin America” and a new exhibition on Gallery Square.
The authors of the exhibition are the curators Isabel Argerich Fernández and Óscar Muñoz Sánchez, while MA Stanislava Jovanović Mindić is the curator of the exhibition at the Gallery of Matica srpska. The exhibition will be accompanied by a rich program including lectures on Fridays at 7:00 PM and guided tours on weekends at 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM.
The project was realized in cooperation with the Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain in the Republic of Serbia, the Ministry of Culture of the Kingdom of Spain, the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Novi Sad – Department of Italian and Ibero-American Studies, and the Faculty of Technical Sciences – Department of Animation and Engineering. It received financial support from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia and the Provincial Secretariat for Culture, Public Information and Religious Communities of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.
