Raša Todosijević: Hvala Raši Todosijeviću – hvaležni meščani Ljubljane, 2000
Photo: Lado Mlekuž and Matija Pavlovec, © Moderna galerija, Ljubljana
Raša Todosijević, one of the key protagonists of Yugoslav conceptual art who began using new media, video, performance, and actions as a provocation and critique of art and society in the early 1970s, when traditional media and modernism were predominant, has passed away. Todosijević graduated from the Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts in 1969 and, together with his artist friends Marina Abramović, Era Milivojević, Neša Paripović, Zoran Popović and Gergelj Urko, who gathered around the Belgrade Student Cultural Center, formulated what later became known as New Artistic Practices.
His art greatly influenced younger generations of artists across the former Yugoslavia, as illustrated, for example, in the East Art Map project (2000/2006) by the Irwin group. He achieved international recognition with his works Was ist Kunst?, in which he appeared together with his wife Marinela Koželj, and Gott liebt die Serben.
He had his first solo exhibition in 1969, and participated in numerous group exhibitions at home and abroad. He represented Serbia at the 54th Venice Biennale held in 2011. He began working closely with Moderna galerija in the 1990s, and was included in many group exhibitions (including the first large-scale presentation of performance art in the region, Body and the East in 1998), and his works Was ist Kunst, Marinela Koželj? (1978) and Thank You, Raša Todosijević – Grateful Citizens of Ljubljana (2000) are an important part of the Arteast 2000+ collection.
As Raša Todosijević said of his life and work:
“I have done all sorts of things: if I wasn’t making objects, I was carrying out performances, if not that, I was drawing elementary pictures, designing environments, printing posters, experimenting with sound and morals (mostly I shouted and turned up the volume of the radio), writing texts, recording videotapes, drawing straight lines (on paper or on the walls of private apartments, hotels, European galleries and prestigious museums), lecturing (about myself and others – more about myself than others), traveling, or simply wasting time with pleasure in endless discussions about art.”
