Draft:Milenko Prvacki

Milenko Prvački (born in 1951, Ferdin, (Vojvodina, Yugoslavia) is a Serbian/Singaporean painter and art educator.

Early life and education

Milenko Prvački was born on 12 November 1951 in Novi Kozjak (formerly known as Ferdin), Vojvodina, Yugoslavia, during the country's totalitarian communist regime. His family home was in a small village 60km from Belgrade and he had as neighbors, a German artist and his wife. The artist often invited young Prvački and his best friend to play with paints in his studio-home. By the time Prvački turned 11, he had, under his guidance, learnt to copy famous paintings such as those by Monet and Picasso. By the time he turned 12, he was sure he wanted to become an artist.

In Vojvodina, from 1964 to 1969, Prvački attended the Serbian tertiary institution Gimnazija "Uroš Predić" Pančevo. In 1970, he enrolled in the Institutul de Arte Plastice "Nicolae Grigorescu" (Nicolae Grigorescu Institute of Fine Arts, now National University of Arts) in the bustling city of Bucharest, Romania, where he studied philosophy, drawing (in particular, anatomy) and painting within the limits of the academy's rigorous methodology.

In 1971 while he was still studying, Prvački held his first solo exhibition, Paintings & Drawings, at Galerija mladih, Pančevo, Yugoslavia. In 1974, he held a second solo exhibition Drawings at the Yugoslav Embassy in Bucharest. That year, he received the Pesak Summer Painting Symposium Award in Pančevo, Yugoslavia. He graduated five years later in 1975 with both a master's degree in fine arts (Painting), and a girlfriend, fellow Romanian student Delia Prvački (born Iieșiu) who would later become his wife.

After he graduated, Prvački returned to Yugoslavia where he and Delia married, and his work was quickly recognized. In 1976, a daughter, Ana, was born. Although he found a job in 1978 as the Manager of Galerija savremene umetnosti (Gallery of Contemporary Art) at Centar za kulturu Pančevo (Pančevo Cultural Centre) in Vojvodina, a job he held until 1991, he devoted himself to his art and was very productive.

Career

He held 15 solo exhibitions throughout the '70s and '80s up until 1990. He founded the Yugoslav Sculpture Exhibition in 1981 and participated in several art symposiums in various countries in Central Europe. His early paintings, such as those in his Dialog (1975–1979) and Heroes (1977) series reflected his engagement with the politics of Yugoslavia at the time with their socio-political overtones and satirical figures depicting alienation and the breakdown of communication.

He also explored his observation of political leaders (especially then President Josip Broz Tito) flaunting hunted "trophies" with his Trophy paintings, which grew from symbolic animal fur trophies (depicting both the fur side and the bloody skin side), the grisly rewards of hunting, in the '70s and '80s, to landscape trophies, reaped from the conquest of territory, in the '80s and '90s. By then, Prvački started exploring his own ideas about non-socio-political issues such as visual language with the use of abstraction, and for the first time, collage in the '80s.

It was around the same time when Prvački became an internationally celebrated artist and won much acclaim. His many awards during this decade include the Annual Art Society Award in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (1980), the Faber-Castell Award in Nurnberg, Germany (1982), the Special Jury Award at the 17th International Painting Exhibition, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France (1985), and the Special Jury Award from Academie Internationale De Lutèce, France (1986).

Yet, despite his success, life was becoming more and more unstable in Prvački's home country. Back then, Yugoslavia was known as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was a tenuous and troubled federation made up of six ethnically diverse republics, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia (including Kosovo and Vojvodina where Prvacki was from). It was rapidly crumbling under the onslaught of the Yugoslav wars.

In 1991, an escalation of inter-state conflicts, uprisings and civil unrest led to the dissolution of the federation. At that time, an old colleague of Prvački's asked him to travel to Singapore for two months to work with her as an artistic designer of sets for a German company, which was working on the now-defunct Maritime Museum in Sentosa.

Prvački worked at the Singapore Maritime Showcase for two years. His new life in Singapore gave him a fresh outlook on both life and his practice, and his earliest paintings made in Singapore, which was expansive and more abstract, reflected that.

In 1993, Prvački held his first solo exhibition in Singapore, Paintings, with his wife Delia Prvački at Lasalle College of the Arts Singapore's Earl Lu Gallery upon invitation by Lasalle's founder Joseph McNally.

Another solo exhibition followed, Paintings & Drawings, which was organized by ART-2 Gallery, at The Substation Gallery. The following year, he held two more solo exhibitions—Untitled with his wife Delia at Singapore's Noble House, and Tropical Rain – Drawings at Centar za Vizuelnu Kulturu Zlatno Oko (Zlatno Oko Centre for Visual Culture) back in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia.

Then in 1994, McNally invited him to teach at the school and Prvački took up the offer to become a principal lecturer in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Lasalle. Prvački had been hesitant as, at the time, he spoke very little English, but McNally had given him six months to learn it. When Prvački arrived at Lasalle, he made a few dramatic improvements. Later, he also reduced teaching hours, giving students more time to practice.

Prvački's first few years in Singapore proved challenging as he juggled the demands of his new job and spending time with his family, learning English, dealing with a sense of loss from having left his homeland, and working on his art. He also spent time getting to know his new surroundings in the tropics, making a few trips to countries in the region with Delia.

Throughout the '90s and 2000s, he was very productive, holding at least one solo exhibition virtually every year, several were collaborations with his wife. He also participated in many group exhibitions in Singapore and other countries including Thailand, China, Hong Kong, UK, Ireland, France, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Serbia and Australia.

Among his most successful exhibitions was The Ultimate Visual Dictionary, held together with Delia, at Caldwell House Gallery in CHIJMES Singapore in 1998. Prvački spoke mostly German and Serbian and had first approached the notion of the "dictionary" when he had to rely on a Romanian dictionary in his initial years studying in Bucharest.

He revisited the idea again when he had to rely on an English dictionary to get by during his early days in Singapore. Then, in 1997, a family trip to Australia and the Northern Territory deserts brought things together. Drawing his observations of the indigenous land in a sketchbook, the idea of collecting his images for use as a source for future work occurred to him, and The Ultimate Visual Dictionary was born. It became a series that was remarkable for the way it explored, among other notions, our relationship with prescribed meaning and the necessary plurality of meaning and ambiguity in language, specifically, visual language.

It was also during the '90s and 2000s that Prvački became active in the Singapore art community, participating in numerous events including a field trip organized by the Art Forum Gallery for artists from Singapore and Indonesia in 1996 and an artist talk at the FEAST! Food in Art exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum in 2000.

He even brought his newfound knowledge of Singapore and regional art back to his homeland of the former Yugoslavia when he participated in an artists' talk on Southeast Asian Art in Belgrade in 2001. That year, he created three massive outdoor works entitled Beehives using concrete, brick, sand, mosaic and other materials. Located on Lasalle's premises at Goodman Road, they were a departure from his paintings, collages, and works on paper, and were part of his exhibition at Earl Lu Gallery, Construction Site, exploring the construction of three-dimensional "images", "methods" and "materials".

In 2002, Prvački reached two milestones in his life. He became a Singapore citizen, and he was appointed Dean of Lasalle's Faculty of Fine Arts. After two successful solo exhibitions in Singapore that year, he held another solo exhibition in 2003 in the former Yugoslavia, only his second there since he left the country 12 years ago. Construction Site, which had been held at Earl Lu Gallery the year before, was held at several venues—the Likovna galerija, Kulturni centar Beograda (Art Gallery, Belgrade Cultural Center) in Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro; Galerija savremene umetnosti, Centar za kulturu Pančevo (Contemporary Art Gallery, Centre for Culture Pančevo) in Serbia and Montenegro; and City Art Gallery in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

There, it had special resonance for its allusions to the cycle of tearing down and rebuilding that applies to so many civilizations in the world, something Prvački had observed when he had travelled with Delia to Rajasthan, India, in 1999 and to Turkey in 2002.

Despite a busy schedule, Prvački continued to put up solo exhibitions every year and also heavily involved in academia. He served as a Visiting Professor three times, once at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Japan in 2004, then at Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2010, and lastly at Washington University in 2015. He also participated in an artist talk at the Istanbul Biennale 07 in 2007 and a panel discussion on Contemporary Southeast Asian Painting at the Singapore Art Museum and conducted a workshop at Singapore's new School of the Arts. In 2014 he has been appointed Adjunct Professor at RMIT University, Australia.

In 2005, he founded the Tropical Lab, an annual international art workshop at Lasalle, which he continues to coordinate as "Tropical King". A yearly two-week event which brings Master candidates from the world's top arts institutions together to research, experiment and collaborate in order to create contemporary art, Tropical Lab has since become an important programme that has yielded fruitful exchanges and work.

In 2011, Prvački was made Lasalle's Senior Fellow in the Office of the President. That same year, he was conferred the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French government, in recognition of his significant contributions to the arts. The following year, he also received the Cultural Medallion.

That year, Prvački held two solo exhibitions that took the artist and his audience back to his past. Remembrance of Things Past, held at iPRECIATION in Hong Kong, looked back to his past, remembering his beginnings in his homeland, a country that he said, "does not exist anymore".

Milenko Prvački: A Survey, 1979 – 2012, held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore in Lasalle College of the Arts, displayed his development as an artist. It featured more than 100 works spanning for decades of his practice, from his early, more figurative paintings thickly imbued with socio-political significance to his later works of non-narrative abstraction (featuring not only paintings, but collages, watercolours, sketchbooks and notebooks) that explored his concerns about visual language, with the notions of representation, collection and construction, with history, displacement, loss and memory.

Today, Prvački's works may be found in the permanent collections of various national museums and corporate bodies in Singapore, the former Yugoslavia, Australia and Germany including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, the Museum of Contemporary Drawing in Nurnberg, Germany, Gallery of New South West, Sydney, National Gallery and the Singapore Art Museum. They may also be found in many private collections around the world in Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, The Netherlands, and the United States.

Contributions

Prvački continues to engage participants with workshops and exhibitions at Tropical Lab, and to coordinate and edit the Tropical Lab PRESS, and fine arts newspaper PRAXIS PRESS and art journal, ISSUE (both of which he founded).

Exhibitions

Selected Solo Exhibitions

• Construction Cite 2016, Installation (with Delia Prvacki), Esplanade Concourse, Singapore, 2016
• E La Nave Va, iPreciation Gallery, Singapore, 2015
• Johor Strait, Building Bridge Art Foundation, Baik Art, Bergamont Station Art Center, Santa Monica, California, USA, 2014
• Art Stage, Singapore, iPreciation Gallery, Singapore, 2014
• Milenko Prvacki: A Survey, 1979 -2012, Institute of Contemporary Art Singapore, Curated by Dr. Charles Merewether, 2012
• Remembrance of Things Past, iPreciation Gallery, Hong Kong
• Review, ICAS, Singapore, 2012
• Trajectory, (with Delia Prvacki), Combinart Studio, Singapore, 2009
• Now you see it, now you don't, Combinart, Singapore (with Delia Prvacki), 2008
• Recollection, TAKSU Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2007
• Construction cite, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, Australia, 2006
• Recollection, TAKSU Gallery, Singapore, 2006
• Framing and positioning of the Elements, PKW Gallery, Singapore, 2005
• The New paintings, Taksu, Jakarta, Indonesia, 2004
• Trophy Paintings, TAKSU, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2004
• Trophy Painting, TAKSU Gallery, Singapore, 2004
• Construction Site, KC Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia & Montenegro, 2003
• Construction Site, Contemorary Gallery, Pancevo, Serbia & Montenegro, 2003
• Construction Site, City Art Museum, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2003
• Methods & Materials, Plastique Kinetic Worms, Singapore, 2002
• Construction Site, Institute of Contemporary Art, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, 2002
• Collection, Sentosa Artist Village Gallery, Singapore, 2001
• Collection, PKW, Singapore, 1999
• Caldwell House, Chijmes, (with Delia), Singapore, 1998
• Fire in Kakadu - Paintings (with Delia Prvacki), Art Forum Gallery, Singapore, 1997
• The Ultimate Visual Dictionary - Paintings (with Delia Prvacki), Caldwell House Gallery, Singapore, 1997
• Painting in spite of... - Paintings, Takashimaya Gallery, Singapore, 1996
• Drawings, Golden Eye Gallery, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, 1995
• NOBEL House (with Delia Prvacki), Singapore, 1994
• Paintings (with Delia Prvacki), LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1993
• Paintings & Drawings, Substation Gallery, Singapore, organised by ART-2 Gallery, Singapore, 1993
• Paintings, Cultural Centre Gallery, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1991
• Paintings, Youth Gallery, Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, 1990
• Paintings, Franzer Gallery, Subotica, Yugoslavia, 1989
• Trophy Paintings, The Coast Gallery, Piran, Slovenia, 1989
• Collage, Mala Gallery, Pancevo, Yugoslavia, 1988
• Trophy Paintings, ULUV Gallery, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, 1986
• Volcano - Drawings, Collective Graphic, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1985
• Paintings, Meduza Gallery, Koper, Slovenia, 1985
• Avignon - Drawings, Barbantan Gallery, France, 1984
• Islands - Paintings, Modern Gallery, Zrenjanin, Yugoslavia, 1984
• Islands - Paintings, Gallery of Contemporary Art Pancevo, Yugoslavia, 1984
• Islands - Paintings, Visual Meeting Gallery, Subotica, Yugoslavia, 1983
• Islands - Paintings, Visual Autumn Gallery, Sombor, Yugoslavia, 1983
• Islands - Drawings, Mali Iikovni Salon, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, 1982
• Fur-Trophy - Paintings, Apatin Gallery, Apatin, Yugoslavia, 1981
• Paintings, Kolarceva Zaduzbina Gallery, Beograd, Yugoslavia, 1980
• Dialog - Drawings, Youth Gallery, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, 1979
• Dialog - Paintings, Modern Gallery, Pancevo, Yugoslavia, 1978
• New Paintings (with Rada Cupic), ULUV Gallery, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, 1976
• Drawings, Yugoslav Embassy, Bucharest, Romania, 1974
• Paintings & Drawings, Youth Gallery, Pancevo, Yugoslavia, 1971

Curated Exhibitions

• Departure 2, iPreciation, Singapore, 2016
• Departure 1, iPreciation, Singapore, 2014
• The same rain, The same wind, University Art Center, Chang Mai University, Thailand, 2011
• That's another story, Praxis Space, ICAS, Singapore, 2010
• NO WONDER, LASALLE Campus, Singapore. 2009
• Two2, LASALLE-SIA Faculty Exhibition, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 2001
• Young Artists, Selection of Young artists from Singapore, PKW Gallery, Singapore, 2001
• Project 1, BETWEEN, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 2000
• ERICSSON Scholarship Exhibition, W&T Gallery, Singapore, 2000
• Scratch, 7th Degree Exhibition, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 2000
• Philip Morris Competition at MITA Building, Singapore, 2000
• Renewal Painting, PKW Gallery, Singapore, 2000
• Ericsson Scholarship Exhibition, W&T Gallery, Singapore, 1999
• WORK IN PROGRESS, Master of Fine Art, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1999
• Master's degree Exhibition, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1999
• PLAY, 6th Degree Show, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 1999
• Work in progress, Master of Fine Art, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1998
• GAZE, Diploma Show, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1998
• Ao Tu, 5th Degree Show, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 1998
• WORK IN PROGRESS, MFA, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1998
• ERICSSON Scholarship Exhibition, W&T Gallery, Singapore, 1998
• MFA Degree Exhibition, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 1998
• DRENCH, The 4th RMIT Degree Show, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 1997
• ERICSSON Scholarship Exhibition, W&T Gallery, Singapore, 1997
• Anthology, Diploma Show, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1997
• BA Exhibition at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, 1997
• WORK IN PROGRESS, MFA, LASALLE Gallery, SIngapore, 1997
• PUP, Diploma Show, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1997
• LOOK, Faculty Show, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 1997
• Tudor Court Drawing Project Exhibition, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1997
• Painting New, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 1997
• BAOBAB!, The 3rd RMIT Degree Show, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1996
• Tangents, Diploma Show, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1996
• Reconstruction, Mixed media exhibition, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1996
• Ferment, Diploma Show, LASALLE-SIA Gallery, Singapore, 1996
• Similarity and Difference, 2nd RMIT Degree Show, LASALLE-SIA

Gallery, Singapore, 1996

Selected group exhibitions

• Departure 3, iPreciation Gallery, Singapore, 2018
• Tao Hua Tan 1st International Artists Residency Exhibition, Xuancheng, China, 2017
• Hearing Images & Seeing Sound, DG Visual Art Centre, Singapore Asian Art Revisited, Art Forum Gallery, Singapore, 2017
• A Home Anywhere, 18th Street Art Centre, Santa Monica USA, 2017
• Art New York (Art Miami), New York, USA, 2016
• 80by80 @ Jendela Gallery, Esplanade, Singapore 2016
• Departure 2, iPreciation Gallery, Singapore Group exhibition, Baik Art Gallery, LA, USA, 2016
• Permanent Collection, Singapore Art, National Gallery, Singapore Art Far Paris, Grand Palace, France, 2015
• Portable Art Week, iPreciation Gallery, Singapore, 2015
• Art Silicone Valley, San Francisco, USA, 2015
• A new Dialogue, Southeast Asian Abstraction, Sotheby's, Singapore, Hong Kong, 2015
• The Cultural Medallion and Visual Arts, The Ngee Ann Kongsi Galleres 1&2, NAFA, Singapore, 2015
• Market Forces, Erasure: From Conceptualism to Abstraction, Curated by Dr. Charles Merewether, Osage Gallery and City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2014
• Passage, with Delia Prvacki, The Luxe Art Museum,Singapore, Departure, iPreciation Gallery, Singapore, 2014
• Art Stage, iPreciation, Singapore, 2014

Awards

• Cultural Medalion Award, Singapore, 2012
• "Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres", France, 2011
• 6th Watercolour Biennale, Karlovac, Croatia, 1989
• Ecka Art Symposium, Zrenjanin, Yugoslavia, 1989
• October Salon Award, Pancevo, Yugoslavia, 1988
• S.M. Salon Award, Sremska Mitrovica, Yugoslavia, 1988
• Special Jury Award, Academie Internationale De Lutece, France, 1986
• Ex Tempore Art Symposium Award, Piran, Slovenia, 1986
• Special Jury Award, 17th International Painting Exhibition, Cagnes sur Mer, France, 1985
• Visual Outam Award for Drawing, Yugoslavian Drawing Biennale, Sombor, Yugoslavia, 1984
• 2nd International Drawing Triennial, Museum of Contemporary Drawing Award
• Faber Castel Award Nurnberg, Germany, 1982
• Ex Tempore Art Symposium Award, Piran, Slovenia, 1982
• MP Award, 1st Watercolour Bienale, Karlovac, Croatia, 1981
• Annual Art Society Award, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, 1980
• IM Award for Drawing, International Portrait, Drawing Exhibition, Tuzla, Bosnia & Herzegovina, 1980
• Award for Best Annual Solo Exhibition, Kolarceva Zaduzbina, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1980
• Pesak Summer Painting Symposium Award, Pancevo, Yugoslavia​, 1974​

Bibliography

• After memory: the art of Milenko Prvacki - 40 years, Charles Merewether, Singapore Combinart Studio; ISBN9789810769888
• Milenko Prvacki: Trophy Paintings, Solo Exhibition 2004 | Asia Art Archive (aaa.org.hk)
• https://ntu.ccasingapore.org/contributor/milenko-prvacki/
• https://www.nationalgallery.sg/festivals/childrens-biennale-2019/artworks/big-hug
• https://pluralartmag.com/2023/07/02/what-we-can-learn-about-creativity-from-milenko-prvackis-solo-abstraction-for-beginners/