With the exhibition of Dragoljub Rasa Todosijevic, unveiling of the sculptures from last year’s art colony and the concert of Stefan Milenkovic, the 47th annual art festival “Marble and Sounds” has begun in Arandjelovac on July 3. The report from Dusica Maticki.
The festival “Marble and Sounds” was opened with the exhibition of Rasa Todosijevic, which presents some of the works from the enormous opus of this Belgrade artist. Some of those are photographs of big formats, which were part of the awarded exhibition that represented Serbia at the 2011 Biennale in Venice.
The park of the Bukovicka spa has been enriched with four new sculptures, made during last year’s “White Vencac” symposium – Todosijevic’s minimalist work “Gate”; Mrdjan Bajic’s “I love America and America loves me”; Slavko Zivanovic’s “I keep watching you”; and the work “88%” of Slovenian artist Tobijas Putrih.
The festival “Marble and Sounds” can boast a long tradition of artistic creativity and exposure. It represents the gathering of sculptors and ceramic makers, accompanied by the music, painting, film and folklore programs. This event lasts through three months of summer, and thus belongs among our most complex and longest art festivals, and being that the admission is free – the most affordable, too.
In the period from 1966 to 1973, three forms of cultural and artistic departments were conceived, each with specific features, but complementary through program: the sculpture symposium “White Vencac” in 1966, “Marble and Sounds” in 1968 and “World of ceramics” in 1973, with symposiums starting in 1974.
A group of artists and art lovers from Belgrade and Arandjelovac decided in 1966 to establish the sculpture symposium “White Vencac”. That same summer, seven artists chiseled their sculptures in the renowned marble mine on the Vencac Mountain, which were later left in the lush ambiance of the Bukovicka spa park. Over the years, it has grown into a unique outdoors museum and the collection of sculptures made of white marble. More than 200 artists have realized their works of art as part of the “White Vencac” symposium, and their sculptures are decorating many cities of former Yugoslavia.
Since 1973, the synthesis of marble and sounds has been joined by the ceramic makers, and the international festival “World of ceramics” was born. Starting with the following year, 1974, and to this day, both local and foreign artists have been gathering annually in Arandjelovac, to work in the best clay in attempt to renew the prestige of the oldest art of civilization. In the National Museum in Arandjelovac, where the collection of art ceramics from this festival is kept, there are some 800 items, created during this particular symposium of the art festival “Marble and Sounds”.