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STREET GALLERY

The street gallery represents a unique project of reviving an abandoned and ruined public space. The devastated public space in the passage between Nikola Pašić Square and Nušićeva Street was reconstructed in cooperation with the Stari Grad municipality, with which our association signed an agreement on the transfer of that space for the purposes of organizing an art program.

We first noticed the space, which was previously used as a place to display Kozara cinema posters, in 2010. After a little more than two years of searching for owners and negotiations, we managed to reach an agreement and the Street Gallery was opened on April 25, 2012, according to the project of architects Iva Čukić and Marko Radenković.

"Five years ago, the space in the dark passage behind the burned Kozara served as an informal toilet. It still serves today, except that it is now the Street Gallery. Only some kind of puritans or cynics on duty will not admit the magnitude of that difference. Only someone with the wrong expectations of art and urban interventions can be dissatisfied. The street gallery was not created to beautify the passage, but to restore the dignity of its users." - insert from the publication "Five years of street gallery".

The process of moving art into a public space provided the gallery with a large number of visitors, but perhaps more importantly, it allowed us to bring the topics we felt responsible to talk about to a wider audience, along with the artists who proposed them. The street gallery is characterized by the colorfulness of media and themes, numerous domestic and international authors, and different artistic sensibilities. The gallery is especially open to authors and artists of the independent cultural scene, as well as numerous authors who create on the wave DIY philosophy.

In addition to a large number of exhibitions, the gallery hosted several festivals, film screenings and workshops, so the Radost Ludost, Micro Amateur Film Festival, Vreva, Novo Doba and Fjuk fairs, the Summit of the Non-Aligned and so on were held there. In cooperation with the Podmornica club, many concerts were jointly organized, and the initiative to name the passage where the gallery is located was successfully implemented. Cooperation with the team gathered around the festival Novo doba and the Fjuk fair brought us numerous interesting programs, concerts and topics.

CHAWKET'S PASSAGE

The beginning of Chavket's artistic activity is connected with the band Store (Čavke, Nebojša Antonijević - Anton and Zoran Radomirović - Švaba), and in 1980 he became the drummer of the iconic Belgrade band - Electric orgasm and occasionally guest Party breakers. Later he becomes part of the band Babe (Žika Milenković and Zoran Ilić), and in the same period (1992) also a member of the group Rimtutituki. As a member of the conscious part of Belgrade at the time, with the team - Milan Mladenović, Zoran Kostić Cane, Nebojša Antonijević Anton, Borko Petrović, Srđan Gojković Gile, Zoran Radomirović Švaba and Ljubomir Jovanović Jovec - he tries to raise the voice of protest against war madness, economic and cultural destruction with anti-war messages. These people, along with numerous colleagues and friends, represented the penetration of authentic rock and roll into the cultural life of Belgrade, to which they gave a completely new quality. Goran Čavajda, through his work, social activities and love he had for Belgrade, deserved to have this passage named after him.

EXPANDING THE NETWORK AND INITIATIVES

We are especially proud of the fact that our gallery inspired the creation of several new similar places in Serbia. The network of street and open galleries also branched out in Valjevo, Šabac, Novi Sad, Smederevo, Vranje and Belgrade. Since its inception, the gallery has occasionally collaborated with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, the Remont Gallery, the Belgrade International Architecture Week, the October Salon, the Belgrade Cultural Center, ULUPUDS, and others.
The value of this gallery was also recognized by the international platform of the institution European Prize for Urban Public Space, which in 2014 nominated us for the award for the best public space in Europe. On that occasion, among numerous inspiring examples, the Street Gallery was presented at an exhibition at the Contemporary Culture Center in Barcelona.
For almost 10 years, our association took care of this space, we reflected it, cleaned it, arranged it, whitewashed it, edited the program and, together with artists and neighbors, set an example of how to revive public space and make it accessible to everyone. After numerous great collaborations with friends gathered around the Matriarchy collective, we decided to leave the space to them in December 2019, with full confidence that they will continue to improve the gallery.

You can read more about the Street Gallery in the publication Five years of the Street Gallery.

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