Recently, the Art Gallery of Harghita County Council displayed the artistic results of the participants in the international art workshop “Free Camp” (August 27 - September 15), now in its seventeenth edition, an event that encourages freedom of expression and does not impose barriers in terms of working technique or theme. However, in the exhibition one can easily notice a predilection of artists for abstract representation, translated by works that fall into artistic movements such as action painting and gesturalism. The contemporary artist often associates the idea of creative freedom with an abstract representation centered on the expressiveness of color.

Gallery capture by Bogdan Urzica

Thus, the visitors of the exhibition were able to discover in the gallery space a series of abstract expressions that speak about color, line, matter, gesture and authorial freedom. In some works the color spots dominate, and in others the lines and shapes obtained spontaneously, through the freedom of gesture, but all are inscribed in the register of a nonfigurative denoting tension or creative energy. The characteristic of the gesturalist movement, but also of the tacitist one, is especially the exteriorization through colors and forms of some inner states or tensions.

"Creation is the true measure of human freedom. At Miercurea Ciuc, Harghita County, there is a space where plastic artists from everywhere, demolishing any kind of borders, focusing only on themselves, can create together: Free Camp", said the critic Székedi Ferenc. And this year's edition managed to "defeat the virus and virtuality, and life and creation present themselves before us again, in their reality", the critic continued.

Photo - Cosmina M. Oltean

In the exhibition were found works signed by the artists Andrea Balló, Nicolae Barb, Elena Drăgulelei Dumitru, Mariana Papară, Csaba Fazakas, Endre Lehel, Volker Schwarz, Ger Varga and Torino Bocaniciu. The project was curated by László Botár. The exhibition was organized by the Harghita County Council / CJHr Art Gallery, in collaboration with the Harghita County Cultural Center and the Cultura Nostra Association.

Ph. Cosmina M. Oltean

Ph. Bogdan Urzica

The exhibition of paintings by Momo Kapor "The Most Beautiful Stories" will be opened on Friday, September 3, at 7 pm in the Grand Gallery of the Army House in Belgrade and will last until November 6, and admission will be free for all visitors.

The exhibition is organized by the "Momcilo Momo Kapor" Endowment in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense and the "Defense" Media Center.

According to the announcement, the exhibition will also feature paintings that have not been exhibited anywhere so far and belong to private collections, and the most represented will be paintings from the collection of Miloš Petković.

All 35 paintings are oils on canvas and will be exhibited in ambient units that will complement the furniture and objects that Momo Kapor used during his life and work to create his works of art and literature. Visitors will be able to enjoy works from various periods, and the pictures are accompanied by stories that will be collected in a special catalogue published by the Media Center "Defense" on the occasion of this exhibition.

"Like the mythical Greek king Mida, who turned everything he saw into gold, Momo Kapor turned everything he painted into beauty and everything he wrote and published became a bestseller. I called the exhibition "The Most Beautiful Stories" because Momina's paintings give us a lost, almost forgotten world, full of nostalgia, love, beauty. Because Moma was a man of Renaissance gifts and God endowed him with many talents. His insatiable curiosity and sense to perpetuate trifles, erudition in which, apart from memory, all the senses with which he lurked the story, atmosphere, smells, tastes, line, character are employed… Moma knew everything, and everything he knew he could write and to paint in a beautiful, enchanting way ", said Ljiljana Kapor, the president of the Endowment.

For two months, the documentary "Momo Uncut", which was shot in the production of the "Momo Kapor" Endowment, will be shown within the exhibition.

The exhibition will be opened by the writer and art critic Dragan J. Danilov, and parts from his books by actresses Rada Đuričin and Vjera Mujović will talk and read about Momi.

Before the opening of the exhibition, the young academic painter Petar Mošić, the winner of the "Momo Kapor" award for fine arts, will be solemnly presented with a silver plaque with the "school" motif and a cash prize.

Petar Mošić received the award for 2019, which could not be presented to him due to the current pandemic, and for the same reasons, the Endowment did not award the prize for literature last year, so the awarding of this prestigious recognition will continue next year.

Artist's biography:

Belgrade painter and writer Momo Kapor (Sarajevo, April 8, 1937 - Belgrade, March 3, 2010) came to Sarajevo at the age of nine, where he was born, and became one of the protagonists of the Belgrade storytelling school.

An academic painter by education, he graduated from the Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts in the class of Professor Nedeljko Gvozdenović; he entered the literary life of the capital in the early 1960s and has since published more than fifty books and novels. Provincijalac ,  Foliranti ,  Una ,  Zelena čoja Montenegro ,  Dosije Šlomović , Konte ,  Magija Beograda ,  Putopis kroz biografiju ,  Od istog pisca , Uspomene jednog crtača,  and many others were on the bestseller lists, and some of them are still on them.

It has been translated into many world languages. He differs from other Belgrade writers in that he illustrated his own books, cultivating a special lyrical drawing style. He was a long-term journalist-columnist of leading Belgrade newspapers. His oeuvre is completed by about twenty performed radio, TV and theater dramas, as well as several film scripts. According to his books, several feature films have been made, and he himself has been the screenwriter of many film and television projects. He rarely exhibited his paintings, several times in New York, Boston and Caracas, in Geneva, Frankfurt, Brussels, Paris, Udine, Zagreb, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Zrenjanin and Mećavnik. 

He was a regular member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Republic of Srpska. 

Opening Date: 03rd September 2021
End Date: 06th November 2021
Location: Grand Gallery of the Army House in Belgrade (Serbia); 
                19 Brace Jugovica street, Belgrade 11000
Working hours: 11 a.m. - 7. p.m.;
                          closed on Sunday