Opening: 23 December 2003 in the Historical Archives of Belgrade and in the National Library of Serbia
Authors: Branka Prpa, PhD, Sreten Ugričić
Realization: employees of the Archives and of the National Library of Serbia
Visualization: Bojana Đurović, architect
Graphic design: Dragana Lacmanović
Exhibition opened by: Nenad Bogdanović, MA, the president of the Executive Council of the Assembly of the City of Belgrade
The conception of the exhibition was unique; different exhibits at two different locations.
Belgrade is one of the rare European cities which, developing its urbanity and identity from a provincial Turkish town grew into a modern metropolis in a very short period of time. In these parts Moderna was accepted not as an enforced, imported model, but as an authentic source of creativity in the first decades of the 20th century. For this reason, the conception of the exhibition was to point out individuals who, through their engagement, contributed to a general modernization of the life in Belgrade in the first half of the 20th century.
The most important written records connected with Moderna in the 20th century, like books, journals, posters, manuscripts, photographs, projects and urban designs, were exhibited. Many of the exhibits had true artistic value and their shapes and original expression spoke about the creation of a new visual world surpassing tradition, ideology and borders.
More important artistic movements were represented: Moderna, literary vanguard (Dadaism, Zenithism, Surrealism); social literature (conflicts at the literary left, conflict in the second Yugoslav state and the victory of Moderna); the conception of the 60s and 70s.
The searches characteristics of visual arts and literature are not foreign to architecture as witnessed by many building designs and urban plans.
Sreten Ugričić, the director of the National Library of Serbia opening the exhibition at the National Library of Serbia The Visualization of the exhibition followed closely the graphic design of Moderna. Aggressive contrast of red and black, photographs and documents the size of posters, texts, sound and a tridimensional item here and there in the space made a perfect unity.
The overall visual appearance of the exhibition was rounded up with the prospectus/guide to the exhibition designed in the same style. With its colors, uneven and asymmetric titles and contributions, it was shaped like a surrealistic textual and visual whole.
