The exhibition “Ksenija Divjak – Between Reality and Myth” opened in the Gallery of the National Museum Kraljevo, on Thursday, December 12th, 2024, at 7 p.m., on the occasion of the centenary of the artist’s birth. The core of the exhibition, whose authors are Suzana Novčić and Ljubiša Simović, museum advisors of the National Museum Kraljevo, consists of works from the Art Collection of this museum, of which there are 33 in total.
At the beginning of the program, Darko Gučanin, director of the National Museum Kraljevo, welcomed the audience and gave the floor to Ljubiša Simović, museum advisor of the National Museum Kraljevo, and one of the authors, who spoke about the artist Ksenija Divjak and her work. He pointed out that the exhibition also includes a significant number of works of art from other institutions: the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, the Gallery of Fine Arts, the Rajko Mamuzić Collection in Novi Sad, the Modern Gallery in Valjevo and the Art Gallery “Nadežda Petrović” in Čačak.
Ksenija Divjak is one of the first postmodern artists of her time, who opted for the figure and figuration, derived from the models and canons of art history. The author uses them and brings them to life in her imagination, creating her own personal and artistic “museum without borders”. She has always been her own, and that means she has never been accepted.
She came to Belgrade in 1941 as a refugee from Zagreb. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in the period 1943-1949. She was a member of the Association of Fine Artist of Serbia, the Art Association “Lada”, as well as the “Belgrade Group”, of which she was one of the founders. She travelled and studied in Italy, France, Greece and Spain, whose culture and art she was most attached to. During her career, she refused the offer of a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts, and later a proposal to become a member of the Serbian Academy of Arts. Her words were quoted as the motto of the exhibition: “It will be a great pleasure for me to know that my warfare with a kind brush has been welcomed by you…”.
At the end of the opening, Suzana Novčić, museum advisor of the National Museum Kraljevo, the other author of the exhibition, also briefly addressed the audience, highlighting the beauty of Ksenija Divljak’s works and inviting the audience to enjoy them.