Collector as a Curator and a Selector

"Collector as a Curator and a Selector", published in 2009, marks the beginning of the project of the same name, when works from about fifteen private collections, mostly of Belgrade collectors, were displayed at the exhibition in the ARTE gallery. This publication presents selected works from those collections, which mostly represent the art of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century in Serbia and the region, as well as contemporary, current art.

"The works shown here belong to different private collections, and if attention is focused on the names of the owners of individual works, it will be easy to determine that the exhibited collections have their own chronological and conceptual framework, and individually, they could represent separate entities within the intersection of modern and contemporary Serbian The exhibited works are representative of individual works of art by certain authors or poets of certain styles. phenomena, authors and works to which time will give the necessary aura, which, on the other hand, is also accompanied by the question of material value (sometimes to the extent that cause and effect change places, and the works acquire an aura thanks to the price paid for them). with a shrewd selection of young and still unestablished artists, it is the collector who, among others, can contribute to their establishment, and thus raise the price of his own collection.

Bearing in mind the historical examples presented in the introduction, which speak of the fact that it was precisely the collectors who supported their contemporaries who, by buying, selling and exhibiting the works of their protégés, often played an essential role in the promotion of certain artists and artistic trends, it can be rightfully conclude that the contemporary art collector participates in writing and creating art history (even at the national level) just as much as artists, theorists, critics, curators and public institutions." Ivana Benović