SLOBODAN KNEŽEVIĆ
Knežević graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade (1977) and earned his M.S. at the same institution, Department of Graphic Arts, in the class of Professor Marko Krsmanović.
He is a member of the Association of Serbian Artists (ASA – ULUS) and the Association of Artists from Vojvodina (ULUV).
He taught at the Academy of the Arts in Novi Sad since 1980, first as Assistant Professor, then as Docent, Associate Professor and Full Professor (1996). The subjects he taught were Graphic Arts with Technology and Drawing with Technology. He retired in 2016.
He lives and works in Novi Sad.
During his long artistic career he exhibited graphic prints, drawings, „cartoons“, sculptures, collages and paintings at more than thirty solo shows in the country and abroad (Hungary, Switzerland); he participated in over three hundred group exhibitions.
Since 1982 he has been present at important biennials in the country and abroad: Zagreb, Berlin, Krakow, Katowice, Catania, Belgrade, Varna, Sofia, Tokyo, Gornji Milanovac, Užice, Łόdź, Miskolc…
He has received seventeen awards for graphic art and painting, and the most important are: 1995 – Golden Needle at the 67th Spring ULUS Exhibition, Belgrade; 1996 – Big Seal of the Graphic Artists Association, Belgrade; 2012 – Silver Needle at the International Drypoint Exhibition, Užice; 2013 – First Award at the Sixth EX-YU Exhibition of Graphic Prints, Belgrade; 2014 – Medal for Overall Opus, Institute for Culture of Vojvodina, Novi Sad.
Irina Subotić, from the foreword to the catalog:
With his set but never repeated conceptual-minimalist treatment (“repetition with difference”) he has researched the liminal values and final possibilities of various graphic art techniques, introduced a series of semantic, technical and technological innovations, made papier-maché, studied its structure and coloured relations, discovered spatial possibilities of traditionally two-dimensional works, posed ecological questions – briefly: he has broadened the horizons of graphic art, including the production of original works in unique materials.
…..
The inquisitiveness and openness, but also the adaptability of Abi Knežević to connect different meanings with his objects, the known with the unknown, new with old, the accidentally found with the consistently searched for tell of artist’s constant need to arrive at the desired result by means of research and combination. Knežević does not look for exotic objects but takes those from his immediate environment, and this suggests that in fact he is following the phenomena of his own life. It is a specific sign of intimisme and close relatedness to the ambience he is dedicated to. Isn’t that also a kind of escapism? An autobiographic discourse through which we can indirectly search for a social dimension and even for the views contrary to his artistic goals? We could speak about the installations and objects of Abi Knežević not only as his affinity towards certain visual art directions, but as a specific state of the spirit, a superior smile over each everyday banality, in a continuous chain of creative rhythm relating numerous previous changes and subtleties already expressed in his graphic art opus.
We cannot resist the impression that the inventiveness, completeness and wittiness of Abi Knežević’s visual statement expressed in each discipline he has been devotedly applying, leave much space for new experiences, new thinking and interpretation. That is the value of creativity.
