Novi Sad Citizens Choose
Starting from the fact that the city is shaped by citizens, their origins, heritage, habits and orientations, and that the museum is a place of collective memory that collects and preserves different life stories of individuals, we decided to open our collection and offer it to fellow citizens through works of art – in our space they tell the story of themselves and their city. We chose them not according to some logarithm or formula but thinking about them as individuals of different professions who are in different ways related to Novi Sad, but also to our institution. They are major actors from Novi Sad, who are engaged in different fields of culture, education, science and economy, different nationalities, and religions and as such show the diversity inherent in Novi Sad. We invited them to stroll along its art depots, look at paintings hanged on panels, sculptures on shelves, drawings and graphics in museum cabinets and to feel the number and diversity of heritage that we keep under the roof of the Gallery of Matica Srpska. and give them the opportunity to find their essence there. We wanted to intertwine personal and general, individual and city, work of art and the possible message it conveys at the present time, and as a result of that friendship, the exhibition Novi Sad Citizens Choose was conceived.
The exhibition tells a story of Novi Sad citizens about their life, childhood and desires reflected through selected works from the Gallery art depot. Lastly, by mounting this exhibition and choosing this model of presenting the collection, we wanted to show that the museum is a place for everyone, and that the Gallery and its collection, seen through the eyes of citizens, can be one of the possible representations of fine arts in the contemporary world.
The exhibition presents 41 works of art from the Gallery’s collection, selected by: Miljana Pavlović, Igor Ćujić, Ranko Rajović, Robert Čoban, Dragana Zgonjanin Bosić, Ágota Vitkay-Kuscera, Slobodan Trkulja and daughter Nikodima Trkulja, Andrey Shibanov, Maria Stoborod Shibanova, Dejan Ćurčić, Jasmina Vukašinović, Zaga KalMar, Danijela Ivanović, Viktor Til, Milesa Milinković, Duško Stojanović, Maja Boškić, Pavle Sekeruš, Milorad Stošljević, Vera Kopicl, Andrija Nikitović, Uroš Krstin, Mihail Dudaš, Vitomirka Trebovac, Aleksandar Dujin, Boško Lučar, Predrag Bogovac, Andrija Gerić, Vladimir Kopicl, Zorica Pejić, Tijana Prodanović, Gvozden Perković, Marija Vasić, Aleksandar Frank, Ottó Horvát, Emina Salai Elor, Savo Ilić, Jasmina and Nemanja Kovačić, Bojana Karavidić, Vesna Latinović and Momčilo Popov.
The exhibition is accompanied by a Serbian-English catalog with texts by Tijana Palkovljević Bugarski, director of GMS, Vladimir Kopicl, writer and
Milica Milošević, project coordinator, as well as with the statements of all project participants.
The project and exhibition Novi Sad Citizens Choose was made possible by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Serbia, the City Council for Culture and the Foundation “Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture”.
