BELGRADE–I fell in love with Belgrade long before I fell for the Serbian man who would become my husband, the two loves blurred and intertwined. On the night before our wedding, the lobby bar of the Square Nine hotel (pictured below) was bathed in a marmalade lamplight, as if time were suspended. I still recall the bear hugs of my arriving friends, coats slapped, hands warmed with foam-clouded hot chocolates; the glorious mayhem that followed. Read more
BELGRADE, SERBIA–We first met Sayid* under the blazing hot sun in the park near Belgrade’s main railway station last Thursday. My friend Maja and I had decided to go down to the park to hand out milk, fruit, crackers and juice to refugee mothers, children and families who were in transit from southern Serbia to the Hungarian/Serbian border in the north. While talking with a fleeing family from Damascus—who had been on the road for the last month hoping to get to Germany— Sayid sauntered up and began helping translate. His English was pretty close to perfect, with a light accent, and so I asked him if he and I could speak when I finished the interview. He agreed. Read more
LONDON- Marina Abramovic tells really funny dirty jokes. Maybe it’s because the self-proclaimed grandmother of performance art has made a career out of timing, but she tells her jokes—too racy to print—with great delivery and panache. This summer at London’s Serpentine Gallery, audiences will get a chance to interact—and just maybe share a joke—with the 67-year-old Belgrade-born, New York-based artist during her new performance “512 Hours.” The award-winning artist also recently worked with Jay Z for his ” Picasso Baby” video and taught Lady Gaga the Abramović Method, a series of exercises to heighten mental and physical awareness. Read more
BELGRADE, SERBIA–Ever since the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade closed for renovations in 2008, the chief curator
Dejan Sretenovic has been asked when the museum will reopen.
Sitting in the museum’s temporary administrative digs earlier this spring, Mr. Sretenovic said that, unfortunately, he doesn’t know.
The museum, which opened in 1965 and is one of Europe’s oldest contemporary art museums, has a fantastic collection of modern and contemporary art spanning the 20th century, including works by artists like Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Joan Miró, as well as some of the former Yugoslavia’s most important artists and sculptors, including Marina Abramovic, Rasa Todosijevic and Milica Tomic. Read more