Raša Todosijević, a celebrated Serbian artist, passed away in Belgrade at the age of 79, after a long and serious illness.
Raša Todosijević was one of the most recognized Serbian artists in the world.
Dragoljub Raša Todosijević was born in Belgrade on September 2, 1945.
He was one of the key protagonists of Yugoslav conceptual art who, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, made a radical departure from the ideology and practice of socialist modernism, joining new artistic trends on the world cultural scene.
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He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 1969, and together with colleagues and friends of similar sensibility, Marina Abramović, Era Milivojević, Neša Paripović, Zoran Popović, and Gergelj Urkom, who were all gathered around the Belgrade Student Cultural Center, contributed to the affirmation of new art in the territory of former Yugoslavia and had a strong influence on many younger artists.
He was one of the first artists to introduce conceptual art – the New Art Practice, and new media to the former Yugoslav scene in the 1970s. Thanks to works such as “What is Art?” (“Was ist Kunst?”) or “God Loves Serbs” (“Gott liebt die Serben”), he gained recognition in the world. He began exhibiting independently in 1969. From 1970, he participated in numerous group exhibitions at home and abroad. Todosijević’s works are in the permanent collections of many world museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana, the Centre Georges Pompidou – Beaubourg in Paris, the Stockholm Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate Gallery in London.
Just a year ago, he received the Ivan Tabaković award from the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and this spring he was awarded the ULUS lifetime achievement award.
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Source: Blic, Photo: Vesna Lalić/Radar