SLOBODANKA STUPAR

Born 1947. in Sarajevo.
She graduated from Applied Arts School in Belgrade (B.F.A.) and from
School of Fine Arts at University of Belgrade (M.F.A.)

She specialized at the School of Fine Arts in Athens.
She lives and works as a freelance artist in Belgrade, Athens and Cologne.

from the text of monograph
Jovan Despotović
SLOBODANKA STUPAR
————————————————–
Od predmeta do koncepta i dalje…
From object to concept and beyond…
Prodajna galerija „Beograd“, Beograd, 2013.
Visual art was considered as means for the expression of what is experienced. Today, especially in the case of Slobodanka Stupar’s work, it’s been a technological channel for the transmission of author’s optical sensations and deconstructed narratives.

Upon their receiving the visual (and audio) stimuli, it is up to the spectators themselves to reconstruct the integrated verbal and visual language expressed by words, sound, and movement.

What helps them to achieve that is an exceptional simplicity, i.e. readability of these works communicating on a visual basis with the simplest elements. Their understanding is not burdened with technological or semantic enigmas, which Slobodanka Stupar has avoided quite consciously and diligently, but resting precisely on successfully stabilized bases of the sense.

As we can see, the central creative impulse of Slobodanka Stupar is the merging of the words and images, the process of creating a verbal icon, in fact, a quest for something which is situated between them and is being below the creative subject (sub-jectum) of the author, while being above the meaning of the shape, i.e. its visible and rhetoric appearance

Here, the author leans fully on the interpretation of the deconstruction of the language, now translated into image and a visual representation constructing the sight which we are watching. But is the deconstruction in fact an examinaton? In this case of creative practice, it evidently is. For it not only helps create a certain work, but it brings into question or stressess the meaning of certain words provoking the spectator to dig through their own treasuries of knowledge, recolections, and feelings…

Slobodanka Stupar has succeeded in avoiding all posible misunderstandings about sense, which has consciosly been omitted in her work, since it has been – sense itself, at the frist glance being simple and not enigmatic in the least, provoking exclusively the experiences stored in the recollections and feelings of the spectator. In her works the artist directs them toward that which is elementary, towards the archetype, archeimage, archeword, towards often forgotten or suppressed experiences of relations established long ago with the reality realm (touch, sight, hearing).

And this artificial world of hers is merely a map of possible directions for moving through reminiscences of the past, individual or collective, artistic or prosaic, real or imaginary, forgotten or deeply engraved in experience, whereby we can move in different directions between that which is – forward and backward, up and down, above and below, meaning and representation…

Grants and residencies:

1980-81. Young Artists grant, Belgrade
1983. Mosa Pijade grant for residence in London
1985. Scholarship from Ministry of Education of Greece
1991. The Grant of Fondation pour une Entraide Intellectuelle Europeene, Paris
1996. Stiftung Kulturfonds, Haus Lukas, Ahrenshoop, Germany
2021. 2022. Stipendium des Ministeriums für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen

Awards and recognitions:

1987. October Salon Price for Graphic Art, Belgrade
1987. Price for Sculpture from Art Colony Sisak, Croatia
1989. Purchase Price from the National University Library at XII Zagreb
Exhibition of Contemporary Yugoslav Drawing, Croatia
1990. Grand Prix at the IX Frechen International Graphic Triennial, Germany.
1993. 2. Price at Biennial of Dry Point, Uzice, Yugoslavia
1997. Purchase Price from National Museum at Belgrade International
Biennial of Graphic Art
1999. Price at Fotowettbewerb Award 1999. Digitale Fotografie, Stuttgart

Works in museums and public collections:

Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade
Ludwig Museum Cologne
National Museum Belgrade
Museum of City of Belgrade
Museum Zepter Belgrade
National Museum Kraljevo
National Museum Vranje
National Gallery of Piraeus, Greece
American College of Greece, Athens
Gallery of Contemporary Art Zrenjanin
Art Collection of the National University Library Zagreb
Art Collection Lazar Vozarevic, Sremska Mitrovica
Collection of Graphic Art, Frechen Germany
Museum of International Contemporary Graphic Art, Fredrikstad Norway
Collection Graficki Kolektiv, Belgrade
Art Collections of Art Colony Sisak and Porec, Art Colony Sisak, Tuzla, Sopocani
MoCAV, Novi Sad
National Museum Kruševac
Museum of Smederevu
Museum of Knjazevac
Museum of Kragujevac
Gallery of Contemporary Art Niš

Selected solo exhibitions:

2022.Goethe Institut Belgrade
2019.Gallery KNU Belgrade
2018.Gallery of Museum of Smederevo
2017. Gallery of Museum of Kruševca
2016.Gallery of Contemporary Art Niš
2012. Gallery ULUS Beograd
2011. Sales Gallery Beograd, Beograd
2009. Red Gallery, Athens
2008. Zlatno Oko Gallery, Novi Sad
2008. Moderna Gallery, Lazarevac/Belgrade
2006. Artforum Gallery, Thessaloniki
2003. Diana Gallery, Athens
2002. Cultural Centre Gallery, Belgrade
2001. Artforum Gallery, Thessaloniki
1999. Christuskirche Cologne
1998. Zepter Gallery, Belgrade
1997. Kaos Gallery, Cologne
1997. Zlatno Oko Gallery, Novi Sad (Yu)
1996. BAP, Witten, Germany
1996. BBK Gallery, Cologne
1995. Rathaus Koeln, Cologne
1995. Simultanhalle, Cologne
1992. Ligue Franco-Hellenique Gallery, Athens
1992. Rozmarin Gallery, Munich / Olching
1990. Cultural Centre Gallery, Belgrade
1988. Art Gallery Christos Kyriazis, P. Faliro/Athens
1987. Kreonidis Gallery, Athens
1986. Yugoslav Cultural Centre Vienna
1985. KNU Gallery, Belgrade
1984. Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh
1984. Sebastian Gallery, Varazdin
1983. National Museum Kraljevo – Gospodar Vasin Konak
1982. National Museum Novi Pazar
1982. Forum Gallery /Studio, Zagreb
1981. National Museum Kragujevac – Mali likovni salon
1980. Sebastian Gallery, Dubrovnik
1979. Gallery Graficki Kolektiv, Belgrade

Selected group exhibitions and festivals:

2023. Back to Athens, Athens

2022.  Art&Fact, ‘80 i ‘90 Danas, Gallery Banski Dvor, Banja Luka

2022. New Acquisitions 2015-2021, National Museum Vranje

2021.  Presence/Absence, NGVU Belgrade

2021. Collection Vujnovic,Sales Gallery Beograd

2021   ’80 i ’90 Today, Art&Fact, KC Trebinje

2021. XXIV Spring Annale, Čacak

2020.  Hidden Heritage, Ruse, Bugarska

2020.  Death of Art! Long Live Art! Biennale of Contemporary Art, Pančevo

2020. ’80 i ’90 Today, The Rythm Devine II, Muzej Grada Beograda

2019. Skriveno Nasledje, Golubac

2019. ’80 i ’90 Today, The Rythm Devine, Gallery of Contemporary Art NIš
2020. Thrown into the World, or about the excellence of uninterrupted artistic creation, Gallery Lucida Beograd

2017. Acquisitions 2014-2016, Gallery of National Museum Krusevac

2017. View to the Center, Museum of City of Belgrade

2015. Twenty-four painters, sculptors, draftsmen and Artistic group Irwin, New Moment Gallery Belgrade

2015. New acqisitions, Gallery of Contemporary Art Zrenjanin

2013. 50 Years ofSales Gallery Beograd

2013. Graphite, matter and energy of the spiritual territory, Belgrade Gallery and Railway Museum of Belgrade

2012. Tout va bien, Athens2009. Step forward, Museum of City of Belgrade (curator Nada Seferovic)

2007. Chronicle of the Absurd, International Photo Exhibition, Thessaloniki (curator Bia Papoadopoulou)

2006. New Forms Festival, Vancouver Canada

2006. Intro/Out Video Festival, Thessaloniki

2005. International Artistic Flag Festival, Gall. Zlatno Oko, Novi Sad (curator Sava Stepanov)

2004. Erasing, International Art Project, Museum 25. May, Belgrade (artist/curator Marica Radojcic)

2004. In the Beginning was the Fire, Titanium Gallery, Athens (curator Bia Papadopoulou)

2003. One Century of Graphic Art, from the collection of Museum of Contemporary Art , Gallery of Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Belgrade

2003. 44.October Salon – Positive/Negative, Belgrade

2002. 43rd October Salon – Zoom in zoom out, Belgrade

2002. Paths of History, Zakynthos, Greece (curator Bia Papadopoulou)

2002. Terra Incognita, Diana gallery, Athens (curator Lane Kokkini)

2001. Collection of the Foundation Zepter

2000. Commentary on the Twentieth Century, Artforum Gallery, Thessaloniki (curated by Bia Papadopoulou)

1999. The Must Recommendation, Artforum Gallery, Thessaloniki

1999. Ten Years of Art Colony Galicnik, Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje

1998. Artists of Novi Beograd, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade

1998. Köln Kunst 5, Cologne

1997. Eshylaeia 97. Eleusis

1997. Visible / Invisible, Thessaloniki, Cultural Capital of Europe 1997. (curated by Irina Subotic, Gordana Stanisic, Ljiljana Cinkul)

1997. Coincidence Cologne (curated by Guenther Demnigh)

1997. Traces/Notes, Gallery Paratiritis, Thessaloniki

1996. 4th International Graphic Biennial, Belgrade

1996. Ars Futura, Cologne

1995. Köln Kunst 4, Cologne

1994. Sickingen Kunstpreis, Kaiserslautern

1994. 3th International Graphic Biennial, Belgrade

1993. Seven Artists from Belgrade, Athens

1992. 2nd International Graphic Biennial, Belgrade

1991. 13th Exhibition of Yugoslavian Drawing, Zagreb

1991. 19th International Graphic Biennial, Ljubljana

1990. 9th International Graphic Triennial, Frechen

1989. Contemporary Yugoslav Drawing, Tempere and Rijeka

1988. International Exhibition of Graphic Art, Fredrikstad

1987. Six Yugoslav Artists at Cultural Center of Athens

1986. Secret Life of Town, Belgrade

1984. Second New Music Festival, Belgrade

1980. Contemporary Yugoslav Drawing and Graphic Art,

Lisboan and Nicosia (curator Meliha Huseidzinovic)

Other works/ projects:

1984. Symphony, performances at Festival Second New Music, Student Culturale Centre Belgrade and
1986. at Secret life of Town Festival, Belgrade
1987. Area of Touch / Space of Contact, lecturing at Open School Djurdjevo, Yugoslavia
1992. Ceci n’est pas une pipe (communication project – live talk with the viewers, improvisational narration and excerpts from Miroslav Mandić’s book Blue Rose), collaboration with composer Lj. Jovanovic, Quantenpool Köln part of Kassel
Documenta IX ‘s Piazza Virtuale TV project; live transmission on TV Kassel and 3sat from Moltkerei Werkstatt, Cologne.
1995. Mirror, performance in collaboration with LJ. Jovanovic, Simultanhalle Cologne
1996. Ueber den Tiellerrand hinaus, performance with Inge Broska and Hans-Joerg Tauschert at Tangenten Festival, Koeln-Muelheim
1996. Answer to my Lette, open art project upon art communication
1999. WHAT IF…?, performance, Galicnik, Macedonia (FYROM)