07.06.2014.

Museum Night at the Central Military Club, Military Museum and Museum of Aviation

Visitors to the "Night of Museums", visiting tonight Serbian capital on the paths of culture and history, were assured that Odbrana Media Centre, Military Museum and Museum of Aviation once again hosted the program for true enjoyment of even the choosiest visitors.

A good time in the best sense of the word and a true joy, are impressions by which the majority of guests in galleries and halls of the Central Military Club, described their experience after visiting the programmes that have been traditionally very carefully organized on the occasion of the renowned national cultural event.

In the Grand Gallery, the hosts arranged a unique exhibition of paintings of Ilija Bosilj from the Museum of Naive Art "Ilijanum" from Sid, consisting of works from the series "The Bible", "Fiction", "The Iliad," "Birds" and "Beasts".

One of the visitors, the renowned Serbian conceptualist Dragoljub Rasa Todosijevic points out that Bosilj's exhibition is the first-class art event in Belgrade.

- Bingo! My personal experience is entirely sentimental and even though I repeatedly watched these pictures I am elated. Aside from that I personally knew Ilija and his son. This is the best exhibition of the "Night of Museums", and Bosilj, although he was somehow underestimated, was truly naïve artist.

Visitors to the Small Gallery, ready for "Reading the Line", made a tour of the selection of graphic works from the collection of the Central Military Club, whose part are also the graphics of the author that marked the Yugoslav art of the fifties, sixties and seventies, including Branko Sotra, Djeordje Andrejevic Kun, Dragoslav Stojanovic Sip, Bozidar Jakac, Ankica Opresnih, Riko Debenjak, Safet Zec, Edo Murtic and others.

Diversity of offer of Odbrana Media Centre and introduction of good energy as well as the space for new artistic forms in the "Night of Museums", was contributed by the very well received by audience exhibition of three-dimensional caricatures of celebrities and public figures, the Kragujevac author Milivoje Lijo Obrenovic, which was presented in the announcement as a bridge between the two types of artistic expression – paintings and plastic art. By a sort of performance, the author showed in front of the audience how this modern form emerges.

To the delight of many visitors during the museum night, ceremonial halls of the Central Military Club were open for public, and the special kind of charm to the artistic adventure was given by the strings of the chamber band of the Stanislav Binicki Art Ensemble of the Ministry of Defence.

Marko Milutinov, an economist from Belgrade, said that he was particularly pleased that he can see in the Hall the masterpieces of the Serbian artists who are not part of the regular display.

- Indeed, the collection of the Central Military Club is a true artistic treasure, and I welcome the feeling of the people in the institution who have made a real impression on the audience by careful selection, with great chamber music performance by Binicki ensemble.

Fifteen minutes' walk away, at the Belgrade Fortress, Military Museum in the "Museum Night" opened the door to "unusual readings of the past - without books and letters". In the gallery of that cultural institution, with a fund of more than 32 thousand historical objects, an attractive museum collection "Western European arms and equipment until the 19th century" was displayed which normally contains 116 guns, while setting is made up of 24 pieces that stand out with quality of workmanship. It was hinted already in the announcement that the exposed pieces were manufactured in the workshops of the best European craftsmen and artists of their time.

Apart from these valuable weapons for the "Museum Night", The Military Museum have specially displayed three original graphics featuring some of the most important battles of the 18th and 19th centuries as well as seven reproductions of graphics, drawings and maps that illustrate the way of production and use of guns.

Student Nikola Vicentijevic from Arilje says that he has always loved weapons and knows many models of revolvers, both the old and the new ones.

- The display at the Military Museum is particularly interesting to me because it provides insight into the development of weapon production and influence in this field in our parts in the past. They testify also about the civilization and a civilisation moment where we were in specific historical periods, says Nicholas who was particularly happy that the "Museum Night" and the setting prepared on the occasion of that event will make opportunity for the visitors to see the permanent exhibition of the institution for which he thinks is unique.

The Museum of Aviation was also a part of the "Museum Night", which, it seems, although spatially out of the mainstream, by its rich and interesting programme has attracted many visitors. Thematic exhibition was dedicated to the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War and the sky over the Serbian front. Serbia entered the Great War with formed aviation and experienced aviators who have contributed to the final victory.

The visitors, except for the display of aircraft of the time, could see the parachutes that, besides keeping the heads of flyers, today represent a special form of entertainment, and the development of parachuting has been shown as a separate segment of aviation and aviation sports.