Belgrade’s Art Surprises

I’m in Belgrade, Serbia, this week and I love it. But instead of telling you more about Serbia right now, I’m going to tell you about some of the art in Belgrade and wait on the other stuff. I have my reasons. Anyway, one of the things I love about Belgrade is how art is seems to be quietly everywhere. On my first day in the city, I knew I was going to have a good art adventure because the first thing I saw leaving my hotel was a 4 year old who stood enraptured by a talented singer in the plaza. The rest of the art I saw in Belgrade was partly planned, but the best of it was, like the little girl and the singer, by chance.

I first went to the National Museum of Serbia, which has a collection of western art, including some paintings by Cezanne, Gaugin, and Van Gogh. I enjoyed it a lot but, not surprisingly, the world’s best 19th and 20th century art isn’t in Belgrade.

*You may not think you can tell the difference between the best works by Matisse and what is not the best, but you can.*

Then I dropped into a gallery on my way back from the museum. OMG! The gallery had a retrospective of a loved 20th century Serbian painter named Ilija Basicevic Bolsilj. Bolsilj’s work is whimsical and engaging, with references to Balkan folklore, Gustav Klimt, and Byzantine iconography. He used a lot of gold leaf until the war made that impossible. My photographs don’t do the paintings justice because part of their charm is the way the artist used paint to create movement and expression, but you get the idea.

Then again by accident, I came upon an enclave down an alley called Belgrade Design District. It’s full of small galleries, cafes, and shops that sell handmade crafts and books (BTW Belgrade is loaded with bookstores!).

*Figures of people on a roof in the Belgrade Design Center.*

And there, I saw a fascinating exhibit about Banksy, the mysterious and still-anonymous muralist. You probably recognize this mural — his best-known, but maybe not his most important work.

Banksy is famous for the surprising ways he challenges the status quo, and the exhibit had some great stories. My favorite was how he snuck one of his own works into the British Museum. He titled it “Peckam Rock” and included a plaque underneath that said, “This finely preserved example of primitive art dates from the Post-Catatonic era and is thought to depict early man venturing towards the out-of-town hunting grounds”.

*The Banksy artifact in the British Museum’s Roman Britain Gallery*

In 2006, Banksy modified 500 copies of a CD by Paris Hilton. In the CDs, he included photos of his own work and music by American artist, Danger Mouse. Banksy then recruited people to put the fake Paris Hilton CDs into the Paris Hilton stacks of 48 UK record stores. When the prank was discovered, Paris Hilton responded, “Banksy is an iconic artist and I thought (what he did) was really cool…” Apparently, Paris Hilton is kind of cool too.

Belgrade has odds and ends of mural art around town, many with political themes.

And yesterday in a nearby town called Novi Sad, I accidentally found an exhibit celebrating Albert Einstein’s wife, Mileva Maric. Maric was a brilliant scientist herself but never became famous herself for the usual reason and because she was married to Einstein. In addition to working with her husband on the Theory of Relativity, Maric loved to ride bikes and there was one very artistic corner of the exhibit with a quote by her that I love.