Blue Exhibition is an interactive field designed to experience modern and contemporary art through the meanings and symbolism of the color blue. The exhibition intends to use color perception and experience as an example to emphasize the uniqueness of each individual, their right to individuality, their own perceptions, experiences, thoughts, attitudes, and choices. It raises questions about the importance of color and the various ways of experiencing this phenomenon. Colors play an extremely important role in the visible world, carrying strong emotional potential and symbolic information. They are subjectively attached to meanings and can evoke positive or negative feelings, anger or calm, inspire, and according to some beliefs, even heal. But what does color mean to people who can’t see? We know that the visually impaired have a limited experience of color and can only retain it as a memory trace that may fade over time. For people who have never had the experience of sight and have been blind since birth, color is just another abstract concept they constantly hear about because they are involved in the verbal matrix of the visual world daily. Throughout history, religion, beliefs and traditions have built a universal symbolism of colors through which different cultural concepts were communicated for centuries.
Blue Exhibition features twelve artworks from the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, accompanied by twelve interpretations designed for direct and active use in order to better understand the world of art and the works presented. The selection of works reflects the metaphor and values most often associated with the color blue – both psychological and sociological meanings. Blue is related to the transparency of the sky, the depth of water, and the heights of mountains, from which its meanings of infinity, depth, sublimity, and striving for heights are derived. In psychological interpretations, blue joins the opposites: tenderness and cheerfulness with sadness and sorrow, or melancholy. It is the color of the sky and what the sky hides, infinite space, freedom and the unfathomable, while also being recognized as the color of peace and reliability.
Furthermore, due to its historical and social contexts, the color blue has also acquired the meaning of rebellion. During the revolutions in France and America in the late 18th century, dark blue was a favorite color and became associated with resistance. In America, the “blue resistance” was embodied by the appearance of blue jeans on the market at the beginning of the 20th century, when the worker’s uniform became a symbol of resistance and youth rebellion.
Interpretations of works from the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art were made by students of the Sculpture Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts under the mentorship of professors Mrđan Bajić and Radoš Antonijević. Assistance in the realization of the exhibition was provided by the Union of the Blind of Serbia, especially Boris Dončić – librarian and editor in the studio of the Library of the Union of the Blind of Serbia “Dr. Milan Budimir” – as well as experts from the School for Visually Impaired Students “Veljko Ramadanović”. The curators of the exhibition are Senka Ristivojević and Katarina Krstić.
The exhibition includes artworks from the beginning of the twentieth century to the second decade of the twenty-first century, and authors are Milan Milovanović, Ivan Tabaković, Petar Dobrović, Petar Omčikus, Radomir Reljić, Zoran Petrović, Dušan Otašević, Sanja Iveković, Tomislav Peternek, Uroš Đurić and Saša Tkačenko. Alongside artworks from the Museum collection are the interpretations by students at the Faculty of Fine Arts – Milica Anđelić, Ivan Bon, Bogdan Đukanović, Nikita Živanović, Strahinja Zoćević, Teodora Jovanović, Jana Jovašević, Ana Kocić, Pavle Radović, Vukašin Rajković, Maja Rakočević Cvijanov, Youyu Ren and Obrad Ćešić.
The exhibition space is marked by tactile paving in order to facilitate navigation throughout the exhibition. Along with the interpretive artworks, information about the artworks can be found in labels adapted for the visually impaired but also printed in Braille. Additional information and audio description are available on audio media in the exhibition area, as well as on the Internet. Access is obtained by scanning the QR code on the caption next to the exhibit. Violeta Vlaški authored the texts of the audio description of the exhibited works from the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art. The texts were read by Ivana Đorđević, Aleksandra Hadžić and Vladimir Jelenković.