Bogdanka Poznanović

(1930-2013) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade (1956). She was one of the founders as well as a member of the editorial board of Tribina Mladih (The Youth Forum) and the magazine “Polja” (Fields), editor of the Tribina Mladih Salon, art critic, professor at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, and co-founder of Atelier DT20 in Novi Sad. She was a scholarship recipient of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1968/69) in Florence and Rome, and then did a three-month specialization (1977) at the Historical Archive of Contemporary Art in Venice.
She held lectures in Ferrara (1984) and was a visiting professor at the Drama, Art and Music Studies (DAMS) at the University of Bologna (1985). Her work has been displayed at numerous solo and group exhibitions. She had a retrospective exhibition at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Multimediale d’Europa (Domus Jani, 1990) in Verona. The award for the best work produced in Serbia at the festival of video creativity in new media “VideoMedeja” in Novi Sad has carried her name since 1996, and in 2001 Legacy of Bogdanka and Dejan Poznanović was founded at the New Media Center_kuda.org.

Photo: Autonomija

Bogdanka Poznanović was versatile. In addition to her artistic practice, she was dedicated to pedagogical work, art criticism, and she also helped establish today’s iconic spaces that served as intersections to the then contemporary art scene in Yugoslavia. The beginnings of her artistic career are related to painting. She mostly painted in the period from 1959 to 1968 in the spirit of Art Informel, lyrical abstraction and matter painting. At the exhibition “Marko Ristic’s Legacy – the Surrealist Wall”, held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade from 1993 to 1994, she was one of the exhibitors along with the surrealists Max Ernst, André Masson and Yves Tanguy. Yugoslavian surrealists Oskar Davičo and Marko Ristić wrote about her works.

In 1968, she stopped painting and entered the public space, performing a series of actions and holding performances. This marked her multimedia practice beginnings, which was not only reflected in her artistic creation, but also in other activities. Namely, in 1979 she founded the Visual Studio for Intermedial Studies at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, the first course dedicated to new media in Yugoslavia.

The first action she performed in public space was called “Heart – Object” and it was one of the first actions in public space in our country. In addition to actions that tended to move art from its traditional exhibiting spaces to the street, she also began to use unconventional media for that time that communicated with the audience in a different way. Her mail art work “Feedback Letter box, information – decision – action” from 1973 and 1974 is also the first major mail art action in our country, since 38 artists from Yugoslavia and abroad participated in it.

Works of an ephemeral nature led her to video and other new technologies, that made her one of the first to experiment not only in the domain of materiality, perception and experience of artistic work, but also in her relationship with the audience, as in the works “Computer tape & body” from 1973, “Telephone Art” or in the audio work broadcast on Radio Belgrade program “Conceptus respiratio” in 1975.

Her versatility and openness is also reflected in the fact that she did not devote herself exclusively to new technologies, but also expressed herself through more material media such as the artist’s book. She made the first one in 1973 titled “Stellata“, and by 1980 she had published about fifteen books on different subjects.

She was also an art critic. She researched and wrote about Milena Pavlović Barili at a time when very little was known about the work of this artist. In addition, she wrote papers about contemporary art in the form of non-interpretive information, in the form of a short text and illustration, thus participating in the innovation of art criticism at that time, as well as the critic-artist relationship, which was then undergoing transformation.

In an interview (2006, Radio Belgrade Channel 2 program City; show creators Snežana Ristić and Radonja Leposavić) she emphasized that she does not like the word art, and that she instead prefers innovation, which could also be used to characterize such a versatile and open practice that kept up with the socio-economic-political and technological circumstances of the given time.

Bogdanka Poznanović (1930-2013) je završila slikarstvo na Akademiji likovnih umetnosti u Beogradu (1956). Bila je jedna od osnivača i članova uredništva Tribine Mladih i časopisa „Polja”, urednica Salona Tribine mladih, likovna kritičarka i profesorka Akademije umetnosti u Novom Sadu, ko-osnivačica Ateljea DT20 u Novom Sadu. Bila je stipendistkinja Ministarstva inostranih poslova Italije (1968/69) u Firenci i Rimu, a zatim bila na tromesečnoj specijalizaciji (1977) u Istorijskom arhivu savremene umetnosti u Veneciji. Držala je predavanja u Ferari (1984) i bila gostujuća profesorka na Univerzitetu za savremenu umetnost (DAMS) u Bolonji (1985). Izlagala je na brojnim samostalnim i grupnim izložbama. Imala je retrospektivnu izložbu u Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Multimediale d’Europa (Domus Jani, 1990) u Veroni. Nagrada festivala video kreativnosti u novim medijima „VideoMedeja” iz Novog Sada nosi njeno ime od 1996, a 2001. je formiran Legat Bogdanke i Dejana Poznanovića u Centru za nove medije kuda.org.
Bogdanka Poznanović je bila svestrana ličnost, koja je pored svoje umetničke prakse bila posvećena pedagoškom radu, likovnoj kritici, a takođe je inicijatorka danas kultnih prostora koji su okupljali tadašnju savremenu umetničku scenu u Jugoslaviji. Počeci njene umetničke karijere vezani su za slikarstvo. Najviše je slikala u periodu od 1959. do 1968. u duhu enformela, lirske apstrakcije i slikarstva materije. Na izložbi „Legat Marka Ristića – nadrealistički zid“, održane u Muzeju savremene umetnosti u Beogradu iz 1993-94. bila je jedna od izlagača zajedno sa nadrealistima Marxom Ernstom, André Massonom i Yves Tanguyem. Domaći nadrealisti Oskar Davičo i Marko Ristić pisali su o njenim delima.

Godine 1968. godine prestaje da slika i izlazi u javni prostor, izvodi niz akcija i performansa čime počinje njena multimedijalna praksa, koja se nije ogledala samo u njenoj umetničkom stvaranju, već i u drugim aktivnostima. Naime, 1979. je osnovala Vizuelni studio za intermedijalna istraživanja na Akademiji umetnosti u Novom Sadu, prvi predmet posvećen novim medijima u Jugoslaviji. 

Prva akcija koju je izvela u javnom prostoru nosila je naziv „Srce – predmet“ i to je jedna od prvih akcija u javnom prostoru kod nas. Pored akcija kojima izmešta umetnost iz tradicionalnih izlagačkih prostora na ulicu, počinje da koristi medije koji takođe nisu tradicionalni u tom trenutku i koji sa publikom komuniciraju na drugačiji način. Njen mail art rad „Feedback Letter box – informacija – odluka – akcija“ iz 1973. i 1974. godine je ujedno prva velika mail art akcija kod nas, budući da je u njoj učestvovalo 38 umetnika i umetnica iz Jugoslavije i inostranstva. 

Radovi efemernog karaktera su je odveli ka videu i ostalim novim tehnologijama, kroz koje je među prvima kod nas eksperimentisala ne samo u domenu materijalnosti, percepcije i doživljaja umetničkog rada, već i odnosa sa publikom, kao u radovima „Computer tape & body“ iz 1973. godine, „Telefon Art“ ili pak audio-radu emitovanom na programu Radio Beograda „Conceptus respiratio“ 1975. godine. 

Njena svestranost i otvorenost ogleda se i u tome što se nije posvetila isključivo novim tehnologijama, već se izražavala i kroz materijalnije medije kao što je knjiga umetnika. Prvu je napravila 1973. godine pod nazivom „Stellata“, a do 1980. ih je realizovala oko petanest na različite teme. 

Bavila se i likovnom kritikom, istraživala je i pisala o Mileni Pavlović Barili u vreme kada se vrlo malo znalo o opusu ove umetnice. Pored toga pisala je tekstove o savremenoj umetnosti u formi neinterpretativnih informacija, u vidu kratkog teksta i ilustracije, čime je učestovala u inoviranju likovne kritike u to vreme, kao i odnosa kritičar – umetnik koji tada doživljava transformaciju. 

U jednom intervjuu (Emisija Grad, autori emisije Snežana Ristić i Radonja Leposavić, Radio Beograd 2, 2006.) naglasila je da ne voli reč umetnost, već da joj se više dopada reč inovacija, kojom bi ujedno mogli da okarakterišemo jednu ovako svestranu i otvorenu praksu koja je pratila društveno-ekonomsko-političke i tehnološke okolnosti datog vremena.