“Belgrade | Walking, Seeing & Enjoying.” by Ida Salamon

Special Interview with
IDA SALAMON

As soon as traveling to foreign countries becomes safe again, Art Market Magazine recommends a trip to Serbia’s capital, Belgrade. A travel book by our very own journalist,
Ida Salamon, has just been published by Falter Verlag.
Let us discuss “Belgrade – Walking, Seeing & Enjoying.”

Art Market: Dear Ida, it’s a pleasure to have you as an interviewee! Let’s talk about your latest book. It features some of the must-visit spots of the fabulous city of Belgrade. At the moment, the book is only available in German, but I’m sure it will be translated to English soon enough.
The book is derived from your extreme knowledge of and experience in Art and architecture. It presents a personal point of view on the historical stories, monuments, museums, and art collections in this magical city.
What lead you to write the book?

Ida Salamon: I was born and raised in this exciting city with an admirable history and splendid places to visit. I love the city; it is brave, defiant, noble, neglected, mystic, and radiant.  My intention was to bring all of these aspects closer to the readers. 

A. M.: What monuments and attractions could be of special interest to Art Market readers?

I. S.: At these extraordinary times, the National Museum in Belgrade is one place in the world where you can enjoy masterpieces of outstanding beauty at a minimal distance of three meters between visitors, even before it was necessary. Furthermore, you can admire Pablo Picasso, Van Gogh, Peter Paul Rubens, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Auguste Renoir, Toulouse Lautrec, Piet Mondrian and many others, each Sunday for free. If you manage to combine this with an excellent brunch in the hotel nearby with someone you love, it could make just a perfect day for you! 
 

A. M.: Where would you start a perfect day in Belgrade?

I. S.: Definitely at The National Museum, which was founded in 1844. It is located on the Republic Square in the very center of the city. This was where the famous former Belgrade café “Dardaneli” was located at the time where the then cultural and artistic elite got together. In 1903 on this site of the former coffee house, the building for the administration of the National Bank was originally erected. Still, later the National Museum moved into this beautiful Renaissance palace and finally opened in 1952.
After a decade of renovations, the Museum re-opened again in 2018 with a new permanent exhibition. 

The exhibition of European and Serbian paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries is particularly valuable. One of the most exciting collections of modern French painting is the legacy of the Jew Erih Šlomović, a friend and assistant to a French art dealer, gallery owner, and publisher, Ambroise Vollard. Šlomović, who as a boy lived in Belgrade several streets away from the place where the Museum stands today, read Vollards book and wrote him an admirable letter in French, upon which he was soon to receive an answer from Vollard, inviting him to visit. In the 1930s, Vollard hired Šlomović as his personal secretary. They became inseparable friends, and the art dealer later left him part of his famous collection, which Šlomović completed after meeting the greatest artists of Impressionism and Postimpressionism.

A. M.: How does the story of Erih Šlomović end?

I. S.: This story, which begins like a fairy tale, unfortunately, ends in hell. After the beginning of World War II, Šlomović packed the works of Art in specially made aluminum boxes and moved to a Serbian village, hoping that the Germans would not track him and that he could save the collection. The Nazis found Šlomović and shot him, together with his father and brother. His mother traveled to that village in 1944 to find out what had happened to her loved ones. There, she found the wife of her younger son and the collection of her eldest.

The local authorities lent her a wagon to transport the boxes with the valuable collection. The train stopped unexpectedly near a train station, where it collided with another train. Roza-Ruža Šlomović was killed in the wagon, and witnesses reported that the aluminum boxes were scattered around and that the soldiers were taking precious drawings from a box to light a fire in the extremely cold winter. Some paintings from the remaining boxes were saved, and they are now featured on the walls of the National Museum in Belgrade. At least we can say that one of Erih Šlomović’s dreams came true.

A. M.: Can you tell us briefly about the history of Jews in Serbia and their relation to the Serbian people?

I. S.: Jews have lived on the territory of today’s Serbia since ancient times; however, a greater presence of Jews can only be documented from the 16th century on, following the expulsion from Spain in 1492.
The most important political event for the Serbian Jews was the Berlin Congress in 1878: Serbia has become a sovereign state, and the Jews have achieved their full civil and political emancipation.
Serbian Jews have declared themselves as Serbs of the Mosaic faith. The Kingdom of Serbia was one of the first to sign the Balfour Declaration in 1917, aiming to establish a national home for Jews. The co-existence of Jews with their Serbian fellow countrymen was harmonious, which can be seen best in their relationships with each other during holidays. There was a tradition that the fellow Serbs were invited by their neighbors’ for Shabbath and the Jewish New Year celebrations with the Serbs responding heartily. Most of the Jews settled near the river Danube while remarking that never in the history of Belgrade will you encounter ghettos. An impressive monument by sculptor Nandor Glid, “Menorah in Flame,” commemorates this site for the Jews of Belgrade murdered during the German occupation.  Nandor Glid also created the sculpture at the Dachau concentration camp memorial.

A.M.: In your new book, you also focus on several main architectural styles and the ruts left by the Jewish population. 

I.S.: Yes, it is essential for understanding the importance of the city’s main historical spots. The German Balkan campaign began with airstrikes on Belgrade in 1941. After only several months, the Germans were able to declare Belgrade a “Jew-free city” (“Judenreine Stadt”), roughly 90 percent of the Jewish population was extinguished. At the place where once the Sephardic synagogue “Beth Izrael” was located, the most beautiful and the only one in the city in Neo-Moorish style, you can now find the Fresco Gallery. The synagogue was damaged during the bombing of Belgrade and was finally burned down at the end of the Second World War. As the reconstruction of the destroyed synagogue would not have been profitable, the Jewish community decided to donate the property to Serbia with the clause that a cultural institution should be built on its remains, and the place should be appropriately marked.
The Fresco Gallery shows the greatest achievements of Serbian medieval and Byzantine Art.
The extensive collection includes 1300 copies of wall paintings from the period between the 11th and the middle of the 15th century, as well as some copies of iconic pieces. All replicas shown are works of which dimensions and manufacturing processes correspond fully to the originals and are created by academic artists specializing in this field. 

A.M.: It is a hardly known fact that one part of today’s Belgrade has a close connection to Theodor Herzl.

I.S.: On the other side of the Danube river, Theodor Herzl’s paternal grandparents, Simon and Rifka, are buried at the local cemetery at a district of Belgrade called Zemun. It is often associated with Judah ben Solomon Chai Alkalai, whose ideas are considered the forerunners of the Zionist movement. He initially worked as a teacher and later became the chief Rabbi of Zemun. There, he conceived the idea of   the return of Jews to the Holy Land, which was further developed by Theodor Herzl, and described a plan for the establishment of a sovereign state on the territory of Israel in his book “God’s Destiny.” His student, Jakob, father of Theodor Herzl, was particularly helpful to print and publish the book. This is the reason why the Israeli President Reuven Rivlin declared during his visit in Serbia that Zemun has the “copyrights” for the emergence of Zionism.

A.M.: What other attractions should we visit at this part of Belgrade?

I.S.: Located not far away from the Zemun Quai, the Museum of Contemporary Art is one of the most exciting examples of museum architecture worldwide, surrounded by a park in which sculptures by the most essential Yugoslav sculptors of the 20th century are exhibited.
The Museum preserves and displays Yugoslav and Serbian Art from 1900 to the present day. The latest exhibition, “The Cleaner,” was the first major European retrospect of Marina Abramović. It chronologically reviews all the phases of the artist’s fifty-year career, from the works of the early 1960s to those of the present day. It contains over 120 artworks, including paintings, drawings, objects, photographs, sound works, video, films, scenography, and archival materials.

Marina Abramović, born in Belgrade 1946, is one of the greatest performing artists and a remarkable figure in the contemporary art world. Throughout her career, she pushed her physical and mental boundaries exploring the themes of emotional and spiritual transfiguration. Upon her return to the place from which she first stepped onto the path of Art half a century ago, that would take her to the top of the world; her feelings turned into a mixture of “nostalgia and excitement,” according to a comment in a newspaper.

The renowned artist also said that she hopes that by watching her performances, especially those in which she fights her fears, vulnerabilities, and pain, people can find strength and say,
“If she can do it, I can do it too.”
She explained that what she is creating with her performance is a safe place for an audience to whom she could pass on her energy and in turn become reinvigorated through them.

A.M.: Let’s talk about the old city. What would you recommend an art-loving tourist to see?

I.S.: The site of the Museum of Contemporary Art offers a beautiful view of the Belgrade fortress.
I recommend not to leave the city before you visit this magical place, it is a must! In the old city, you can also enjoy many examples of specific Neo-Byzantine, also known as Serbian national architectural style, which originated in the tradition of the medieval Serbian-Byzantine school.
In the residence of the Serbian Princess Ljubica, built in the style of the Balkan architecture, you can take part in a performance, a Serbian Orthodox Christian tradition of the ritual glorification of one’s family’s patron, inscribed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list. There are also small museums which are situated in bourgeois apartments, like the one of artist Paja Jovanović. His paintings fetch amounts exceeding 100.000 EUR in prominent auction houses in Europe. 

A.M.: In your book, you also mention special collections and unique exhibitions located outside the city center. Can you give us some examples of those?

I. S.: Outside of the center of the city, there is the Petar Lubarda Foundation. Lubarda was one of the most influential artists of the former Yugoslavia in the second half of the 20th century. Among the numerous awards, he received for his work, are the prestigious International Award at the São Paulo Art Biennale (1953) or the Guggenheim National Award in New York (1956).
To quote Henry Moore regarding the art show in Brazil,
“no one but Yugoslavia and its Lubarda had brought something new to the art show.”
The villa, to which Lubarda moved with his wife, was built in 1927 in the former vineyards as a summer residence for a Belgrade family.
Petar Lubarda’s legacy consists of 24 paintings, 292 drawings, and prints, furniture, archive and manuscript pieces, as well as sections of his library and some personal objects.
 All of this, including numerous current art festivals, and much more, you can find in my City-Walk, just published in German by the Viennese Falter publishing house.

A.M.: Thank you, Ida. It’s been a pleasure, and I’m certain that Art Market Magazine’s readers will enjoy the book!

To order the book:
shop.falter.at/belgrad.html

Read the full Article on Art Market Magazine Issue #47