Dragan Jelenković belongs to a generation of artists who further advanced major innovations in the visual and semantic dimensions of sculpture, building on the transformations that began in the 1980s and shaping a landscape marked by stylistic heterogeneity and highly individualized sculptural poetics.
As a prominent figure within the art scene, Jelenković has moved between Belgrade, where he was trained and exhibited extensively, and the Vojvodina region, where, through his origins and active presence in Pančevo and Novi Sad, he emerged as a leading proponent of a renewed sculptural sensibility. From his earliest solo and group exhibitions, he demonstrated a profound commitment to exploring the formal and semantic possibilities of diverse materials and their combinations (terracotta, wood, bronze, metal, felt, canvas, etc.) employed in his works, or more precisely, in materialized shapes whose motifs draw on a distinctive repertoire of everyday objects and vernacular iconography. Deckchairs, strudels, accordions: these are among the visual elements Jelenković elevates into new forms, on the verge of recognition, while retaining in their contours or fragments traces of memory and mental projections of intimate environments and the interiors in which they were experienced.
In the early stages of his artistic practice, the motif of the house emerged as a central focus of Jelenković’s explorations of form in space, gradually developed through construction, deconstruction, and the multiplication of miniature, pared-down architectural elements. Through their iteration, each work opened broader semantic and connotative aspects of the very notion of home. Following a series of works centered on architectural sculpture and the archetypal image of the house, Jelenković entered a new phase of material experimentation and progressively considered his works in dialogue with exhibition spaces, shifting from object-based sculpture toward installation-based situations and extending his sculptural ideas into alternative perceptual experiences. His material repertoire broadened to include both tangible substances – glass, plexiglass, aluminum foil – and ephemeral media, such as candy mixtures, light, and even scent. Works in their final presentation became more and more complex, ranging from site-specific interventions to fully immersive sculptural environments. The introduction of novel techniques, materials, and media – including digital graphics and video – marked a decisive conceptual shift, enabling a reconsideration of the interplay between subjective and objective space. This evolution expanded the thematic scope of his practice, encompassing contemporary civilizational phenomena, the psychological condition of the individual, and evidence of ecological crisis. As noted by art historian Lidija Merenik, by the late 1990s, the post-medium phase of Jelenković’s practice had fully aligned with transformations in his chosen media. Video installations supplanted traditional “sculpture,” ultimately leading the artist to frequent engagement with digital technologies and innovative visual-formal strategies.
The exhibition at the Gallery-Legacy of Milica Zorić and Rodoljub Čolaković presents a selection of works from across Jelenković’s decades-long practice. It also features recent production that thematizes the phenomenon of redefining form in contexts shaped by contemporary global conditions, including new modes of communication, evolving relationships with nature, the abundance of information, and the primacy of the digital image.
After completing his studies at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, Department of Italian Language and Literature, Dragan Jelenković (b. 1959) enrolled at the Faculty of Fine Arts, where he earned his master’s degree in 1992. His exhibition record includes numerous shows in Serbia and abroad, among them more than twenty solo exhibitions. In addition to his artistic practice, he has worked in design, served as gallery program editor, curator, artistic director of international projects, and editor of the publishing program at the Pančevo Cultural Center. In 1995, in collaboration with Professor Branko Pavić, he founded the multimedia Workshop 301 at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Architecture. He is also a founding member of the artist association Otvorena osećajnost (Open Sensibility, 1999). Jelenković has authored and edited several books, publications, and monographs on contemporary art. He has received numerous awards at Yugoslav and Serbian art events, including the Pančevo October Award (1997). His works are represented in many museum and gallery collections, as well as in private collections across the region. Until 2024, he served as a professor at the Faculty of Architecture.
Exhibition curator: Miroslav Karić, MoCAB