07.04.2017

Painting travels through the world of Momo Kapor

There are a small number of those who become legends during their life. Momo Kapor, one of the best writers among painters and the best painter among writers had that rare privilege. The exhibition “Momo, par lui meme” about his life and work was opened tonight in the Central Military Club on the eve of his 80^th birthday. Once again it turned out that everything in relation to this eternal boy of our cultural scene and an associate of the magazine “Odbrana” from the period of bombing is an event. Namely, the exhibition was opened thanks to the “Momo Kapor Foundation” and the Media Centre “Odbrana” in the presence of Vladan Vukosavljevic, Serbian Minister of Culture, diplomats, numerous experts on fine arts and admirers of the work of this great artist.

Greeting the present ones, Ljiljana Kapor emphasized that the concept of the exhibition was not chosen by chance: “Writing about others and painting the others, Momo actually made his entire biography and attitudes open to public”.

The Serbian Minister of Culture Vladan Vukosavljevic reminded of everything he personally remembered Kapor by – his shows on “Radio Belgrade 202”, in which he made Okudzhava closer to the audience here, and many other people whose names were rarely heard here: “The man of unbelievable gift and renaissance nature, Peter Pan of our culture in the best sense of this word, he often had various Captain Hooks who he always beat. He was often disparaged by many, both talented and quasi-talented writers who we do not remember today at all, unlike him”.

It can really be said that the exhibition open tonight is a true display of that rich nature, starting from the photography with his parents, the invitation letter of the fine arts academy to come and take an entrance exam, pupil and student records, the early works which have not been exhibited so far. A nude whitens at some coast, caught in the eye of the artist around 1956, when he was a young student of the Fine Arts Academy in Belgrade. There are his New York drawings, exhibition posters in the most important cultural centre in the world, because as Colonel Stevica Karapandzin, the Director of the Media Centre “Odbrana”, said: “The exhibition was planned as painting travels through three most significant points in his life – Sarajevo, New York and Belgrade.”

Nikola Kusovac, our great expert on fine arts and conservation, added a gold nugget to this portrait, talking about a journey with Kapor to Hilandar, when the sole day at this sacred place was enough for the great writer to write his best book “Chronicle of the lost city”.

“Listening to monks and asking them, he did what he had learnt from his mentor Nedeljko Gvozdenovic at the Fine Arts Academy – to separate important from irrelevant. Therefore Kapor the writer actually owes Kapor the painter, which can also be seen in his books”, Kusovac said. Anyway, an outstanding exhibition calls the citizens to see who Momo Kapor was and what he did abroad before his route at Ada Ciganlija became the obligatory one for everybody.

The exhibition lasts the following three weeks.