Zdravko Joksimović: A Glimmering Friendship

Zdravko Joksimović: A Glimmering Friendship, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, May 8 – August 25, 2025

Spanning almost four decades of creative production, the retrospective of sculptor Zdravko Joksimović at Belgrade’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCAB) this summer defies convention. Rather than following a chronological trajectory, curator Miroslav Karić has chosen to organize more than 270 works—from drawings to ready-made paintings, assemblages, and sculptures—into twelve thematic units for the two-part exhibition, A Glimmering Friendship. Opting for an “open structure of display,” the exhibition launched with the first six units(Zdravko Joksimović: A Glimmering Friendship, exhibition brochure.); halfway through the show, they will be replaced with the second set of six in a gradual process that will unfold before visitors’ eyes. By presenting a retrospective that never reveals Joksimović’s complete oeuvre at any single moment, the exhibition adopts a format that itself embodies the playfulness, unpredictability, and acuity that define Joksimović’s practice.

Beyond its formal innovation, this retrospective represents the latest chapter in the MoCAB’s ongoing effort to re-establish its public presence following its reopening in 2017 after a decade-long reconstruction. Despite having faced several significant challenges—including the COVID-19 pandemic and a prolonged delay in appointing a director—the museum has remained committed to showcasing Yugoslav and Serbian art, including through a series of ambitious surveys of major national artists. Joksimović’s retrospective continues this trajectory, addressing a critical gap: while the artist boasts a prolific exhibition history and has received several public commissions in Serbia and abroad, his practice has not been the subject of focused scholarly attention.(A selection of catalog essays on Joksimović work is available on the artist’s website: http://www.zdravkojoksimovic.com) This exhibition (and its forthcoming catalog) should be a catalyst both for a systematic study, and wider public appreciation of his opus.

Born in Buče, Montenegro in 1960, Joksimović graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 1986 and has taught in its Sculpture Department ever since. His early career was shaped by his association with the New Belgrade Sculpture (Nova beogradska skulptura)—a cohort of young sculptors affiliated with the Student Cultural Center in Belgrade and supported by its highly influential head of the visual arts program, the art historian and curator Biljana Tomić-Denegri. Although never a strictly programmatic group, New Belgrade Sculpture brought together artists with a shared interest in both standard sculptural and atypical materials, who would often scour the city’s flea markets for potential finds.(Author’s conversation with curator Miroslav Karić, June 23, 2025.) The interrelated questions of what constitutes sculpture and what a sculpture could be made of would remain central throughout Joksimović’s career, and serve as organizing principles across each of the thematic sections in the first part of the retrospective.

Three defining features of Joksimović’s practice emerge throughout the show: his deep interest in materials, his passion for the history of sculpture, and a poetic talent that is reflected in a knack for devising compelling titles. These qualities are introduced with three sculptures—Now Everything’s Visible (Sad se sve vidi, 2015), There Was No Other Way (Drugog puta nije bilo, 2016) and Awareness of Form (Svest o obliku, 2025)—that together form a gateway to the exhibition. Their powerful slim verticals evoke Constantin Brancusi’s iconic works, while foregrounding Joksimović’s sustained engagement with both wood and metal. There Was No Other Way stands out: eight smooth conical segments appear preciously balanced atop one another, rhythmically punctured by exposed wooden knots that at once call attention to the hand of both the artist and nature.

Zdravko Joksimović, There Was No Other Way, 2016. Wood, 370 × 50 × 60 cm. Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade (MoCAB). Photograph by Bojana Janjić / MoCAB

Behind this sculptural trio, a section of Joksimović’s two-dimensional works includes pieces ranging from drawings to ‘readymade paintings’ that incorporate pastel alongside other materials and techniques. While their abstract quality is visually attractive, the rationale for including so many two-dimensional works by an artist known primarily for his sculpture is not immediately clear. Gradually, however, this section reveals its relevance: these works reiterate the artist’s material obsessions, foregrounding his tinkering sensibility through layered textures that expand upon the two-dimensional format. Joksimović’s penchant for wordplay and ability to distill complex phenomena into poetic titles is also on full display, at times overshadowing the works themselves. It’s Always Like This in California (Ovako je stalno u Kaliforniji, 2022), for example, with its shimmering pink set against a baby blue background, reads like Barbie-fied Suprematism. Although Karić notes that Joksimović has never visited California, this piece—combining oil pastel with industrial insulation materials—conjures a surprisingly authentic impression.(Author’s conversation with curator Miroslav Karić, June 23, 2025.) The title delivers the real punch: simultaneously a platitude about California’s perpetual sunshine, and perhaps a sardonic commentary on the deception of the American dream, it resonates with local audiences attuned to both the realities of migration and the fraught transition to liberal democracy.

The next two sections—The Experience of Plants and Physiological Status—explore Joksimović’s fascination with the relationship between botanical and human forms. The works across these thematic units are connected by the concept of a leaf— a motif inspired by a story about Auguste Rodin, whose teacher supposedly told him that once he grasped the structural complexity of a leaf, he would understand the human body. This anecdote captivated Joksimović, and is most clearly expressed in the wooden sculpture We’re the Same Height (Iste smo visine, 1991), in which a giant leaf mounted high on the gallery wall suggests equivalence between plant and human scale.  The leaf’s transience evokes human fragility, foreshadowing the artist’s extended meditation on mortality in later sections. The Experience of Plants also showcases material heterogeneity through a clever use of found objects, as in Ready made (1998), in which the face of a wristwatch is replaced with a small wooden circle marked with growth rings—a meditation on human versus natural time.

Zdravko Joksimović, We’re the Same Height, 1991. Wood, 189 × 140 × 5 cm. Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade (MoCAB). Photograph by Bojana Janjić / MoCAB

While Rodin’s leaf study led him toward naturalism, Joksimović’s botanical investigations would take a radically different path. The human figures in Physiological Status are highly schematic, resembling prehistoric sculptures. Working primarily in terracotta, Joksimović exploits the material’s hygroscopic properties to evoke the capillary systems shared by plants and humans, imbuing his pieces with organic qualities. In Let It Simmer (Pustiti da prostruji, 2012), a male figure sits atop a barrel-like base pierced with holes, colorful straws emerging from lower perforations and a yellow funnel protruding from his tilted-back mouth. The curator explains that the artist occasionally pours motor oil through the figure, causing color to rise from the figure’s legs to the neck.(Author’s conversation with curator Miroslav Karić, June 23, 2025.) This piece, exemplifying Joksimović’s fusion of terracotta with readymade objects, reflects on consumption, excretion, and saturation in both natural and spiritual terms. These combined works are more engaging than other pieces in the section, with dismembered hands, legs, and torso fragments hovering against the white gallery walls and maintaining a deliberate distance from visitors.

Zdravko Joksimović, Let It Simmer, 2012. Terracotta, oil, sponge, plastic, 190 × R 105 cm. Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade (MoCAB). Photograph by Bojana Janjić / MoCAB

Throughout the exhibition, Joksimović’s work avoids communicating “a significant message or universal truth,” instead subtly reflecting on “the dimensions of everyday existence, no matter how turbulent.”(Zdravko Joksimović: A Glimmering Friendship, exhibition brochure.) The breakup of former Yugoslavia was certainly a turbulent process, and major socio-political themes inevitably infuse the production in Ex-YU Experiences, a centrally placed section that is framed by the artist’s attempt to answer the question: “What country did I live in?” This standout thematic unit draws on Joksimović’s unique strengths: recontextualizing found objects and capturing complex phenomena in his short poetic titles. Sweet and Salty—The Blue Train (Slatko i slano —plavi voz, 1993) is immediately compelling, with its blue ceramic train stretching along a semicircular wooden base. Inspired by newspaper reports of Josip Broz Tito’s famous Blue Train being used to smuggle salt during the 1990s, the piece brilliantly fuses ideology with post-Yugoslav reality. Joksimović renders the blue train as salt and sugar dishes—ubiquitous Yugoslav souvenir items—transforming a symbol of state grandeur into one of contraband activity that defined the disintegration period.

Zdravko Joksimović, Sweet and Salty – Blue Train, 1993. Ceramics, salt, wood, 35 × 77 × 9 cm. Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade (MoCAB). Photograph by Bojana Janjić / MoCAB

The exhibition’s titular work—A Glimmering Friendship (Svetlucavo prijateljstvo, 2024)—anchors this section, exploring the extent to which Yugoslavia’s history and its demise remain embedded in collective consciousness. Recognizing Yugoslavia’s distinctive outline in a fraying piece of fabric, Joksimović preserved it as a haunting background against which he traces Serbia’s contemporary borders using inexpensive Chinese-made fairy lights.(Author’s conversation with curator Miroslav Karić, June 23, 2025.) The fabric, which remains in a state of decay yet stubbornly refuses to disappear, creates a ghostly backdrop to present-day Serbia, delineated in bright lights that somehow appear perpetually on the verge of failure. The evocative title delivers pointed commentary on friends—true or false—of both the socialist past and (protracted) current phase of transition, where Western and Asian capitalism compete for influence.

Zdravko Joksimović, A Glimmering Friendship, 2024. Map of Yugoslavia, decorative lights, 199 × 298 × 4,5 cm and Where Do We Lay the Flowers Here (right), 2016. Plaster, roses, photographs on wood, 200 × r 150 cm. Photograph by Bojana Janjić / MoCAB

Indeed, beyond meditations on Yugoslavia’s ghostly persistence, the artist’s reflections on contemporary society are quiet yet ever-present, with his material preoccupations operating in concert with his interest in narrative content. In Ex-YU Experiences, Joksimović is often explicit: Keep Out of Reach of Children (2001) covers a toy tank with Western clothing brand labels, highlighting a link between military power and consumerism that strongly resonates with the local experience. Elsewhere he is more characteristically enigmatic. Your Body Deserves the Best (Vaše telo zaslužuje najbolje, 2004), featuring a terracotta nude with raised arms and a hook in his mouth on a tall composite base, transforms an advertising slogan into commentary on surrender and addiction to a culture obsessed with appearance and preserving the status quo.

The sense of  arrest that permeates these works is also evident in Pietàs, a section combining sculptures and drawings that reinterpret the traditional Western European motif of the Virgin Mary cradling Christ’s body. Joksimović pushes the religious context here into the background, transforming Christ into a self-portrait suspended between sleep and death. Used I (Korišćeno I, 2012) exemplifies this approach: a Christ-like figure enclosed in a tight frame, with the crown of thorns deconstructed into the frame’s inward pointing spikes, and with plastic red slippers placed under its feet that evoke a common man for local viewers. For an artist who ostensibly avoids grand statements and obsesses over often mundane details—a human eyelash, a minuscule wire fragment, a toy wheel—Joksimović certainly knows how to evoke big issues. His Pietàs channel the nervous energy of Egon Schiele and Edvard Munch, reflecting on a prevailing sense of apathy, resignation, and lack of vision that has both local and global currency.

Zdravko Joksimović, Installation view, section Pietàs. Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade (MoCAB). Photography by Bojana Janjić / MoCAB

Culture of Materials closes this first iteration of the exhibition on a high note, celebrating Joksimović’s passion for both typical and atypical sculptural materials. Joyful, playful, and witty, these works span from his earliest solo exhibitions in the early 1990s through to the present day, testifying to a genuine ‘glimmering friendship’ between the sculptor and his medium. The pieces here pull upon and extend threads established earlier in the exhibition, including the artist’s engagement with his sculptural predecessors—from Cubist assemblage and Dadaist objects combining material explorations with poetic play to Constructivist counter-reliefs that echo Vladimir Tatlin’s revolutionary reimagining of sculpture’s social possibilities. It is this engagement with modernist and avant-garde sculptural heritage that underpin some of the most compelling pieces in the retrospective, and in this section in particular. Makes No Difference, Zenith or Pupil (Sve jedno zenit ili zenica) is a case in point: it simultaneously explores material properties, tensions between two- and three-dimensional formats, and poetic wordplay on “zenith” and “pupil,” which sound nearly identical in Serbian (zenit/zenica) and, upon reflection, might actually describe the same thing.

Zdravko Joksimović, Makes No Difference, Zenith or Pupil, 1991. Metal, rubber, wood, 62 × 57 × 50 cm. Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade (MoCAB). Photograph by Bojana Janjić / MoCAB

The exhibition’s second iteration, fully on display by mid-July, will introduce six new thematic sections: a series of Joksimović’s erotic works; pieces produced in homage to fellow artist Bora Iljovski (1942-2013); assemblage works; collages; works that examine the therapeutic function of art; and a set of pieces that engage with aspects of contemporary consumer society.(Author’s conversation with curator Miroslav Karić, June 23, 2025 and email exchange, July 14, 2025.) The thematic unit dedicated to the former Yugoslavia will remain, and occasional pieces from the other five initial units will also be kept as links to part one. This format, though conceptually attractive, raises questions about what might be gained or lost when viewers cannot engage with the full selection of Joksimović’s work in a single visit. Yet for an artist whose practice thrives on recurrence—with frequent revisiting of materials and themes—and has often been defined by fragmentation and openness, this structure feels entirely appropriate. Indeed, a retrospective that essentially evades its primary purpose becomes here precisely the type of witty gesture that Joksimović would himself be proud of.

Zdravko Joksimović, Installation view, section The Experience of Plants. Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade (MoCAB). Photograph by Bojana Janjić / MoCAB

The first iteration of the exhibition succeeds in drawing out Joksimović’s considerable strengths: his treatment of wood and metal in powerful freestanding pieces, his handling of found objects, and his masterful use of titles that seamlessly shift from levity to tragedy. It remains to be seen whether the second iteration might offer new perspectives on aspects of his practice that feel less powerful—such as certain sets of two-dimensional works, or some of the more obscure figural compositions. The forthcoming catalog may well provide the contextual framework necessary to appreciate where these works might fit within his broader development. There is no doubt, however, that the exhibition has the ability to draw in and sustain dialogue with viewers, and in doing so will undoubtedly catalyze a much wider appreciation of Joksimović’s opus. Yet the show’s most impressive achievement may be its invitation to play, tinker, and share in the joke—however out of place such a call might appear in our contemporary moment—suggesting that through imagination and friendship, we might just rediscover a path out of our present state of suspension.

Iva Glisic

Iva Glisic is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian National University, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia. She is a member of the editorial board of ARTMargins Online and host of the Eastern European Studies Channel within the New Books Network podcast series. Trained as an art historian and historian specializing in modern Russia and the Balkans, Glisic's work explores the evolution of radical ideas throughout the twentieth century, with particular emphasis on the relationship between avant-garde art and politics, and the link between historical and contemporary forms of artistic activism. She is the author of the award-winning study The Futurist Files: Avant-Garde, Politics, and Ideology in Russia, 1905–1930 (Northern Illinois University Press, 2018).