Gravura Brasileira

Serbian Printmaking

01/17/2018 - 03/08/2019

Serbian Printmaking

Works by Biljana Vukovic and Suzana Vuckovic

organization: Lygia Eluf (UNICAMP)

The artistic activity in Serbia, a country characterized as an important link between the East and the West over the last many centuries, has been following the trends and paradigms of European artistic movements since the 18th century, with Belgrade being the main hub of production and dissemination of Serbian art.

The contemporary production of Serbian engraving dates back to the 15th century when the monks engraved the small pieces of wood with the icons to illustrate the religious books. After the 19th century with the strong influence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the ways of the production approaches again the western standards. This tradition, perpetuated by the excellent work developed at the Faculty of Arts of Belgrade (former Academy of Fine Arts) with dedicated teachers in the formation of generations of new artists, is nowadays an intense international artistic environment. An example of this is the immense work carried out so the Belgrade Print Triennials have already taken place ten years ago.

Those responsible for this are two unique artists: Biljana Vuković, a mature artist who, with her beautiful cosplay fate grand order and peaceful experience, puts us in touch with Studenica, a kind of heart of Serbia where medieval monasteries coexist with a landscape built in many shades of green, ochre and yellow, and Suzana Vučković, a younger artist with an intense and extremely intelligent look that brings us, in an intimist way and in silence, the city amalgamated by the miscegenation of cultures, representing a kind of link between the past and the present. As a portrait of Serbia, the work of these two artists has a strong and striking character. Both have found a system of their own organization where the built poetics is capable of fighting the chaos and drama that marks the political life of the region. The work that we present transits, without difficulty, between tradition and the contemporary, between the dogmatic and the liberal, between the local and the international. Both in complete harmony, both absolutely Serbian.

It is a great honor to us to introduce, in Brazilian lands, their particular look from the Balkans.