Since the Museum “Macura” officially opened on the 3rd of May 2007, there was a series of different experiences centered on this place among the colleagues journalists, artists, visitors, that, with all the compliments, delight and approval, may be reduced to the fact that Vladimir Macura has fulfilled his dream here.

One of the rare private museums in Serbia has a very unusual story, an atypical walking path, and in addition to all that, all visitors, or better to say, travellers who happened to pass by – quite easily and simply imprint the seal of their own experiences.

“I desired the visitor who decided to visit the Museum “Macura” to come here, open the door, and find no one to welcome him, because there is no curator who will recount about the idea, the artists and art… To make coffee by himself, or help himself to the juice, or perhaps the wine from the refrigerator. To take a look at the collection, to stay there as long as he wants. In the courtyard overlooking the Danube he can read a book from my library, and he can sleep over if he wants to. It would be nice if he washed the coffee cups, but it’s not obligatory, if he brings his bottle of wine, he might leave it to someone else, but it’s not a must either… I wanted this house to be a meeting place, in a way. And all you have to take from here is the energy of this place that one should feel on one’s own. And then he can continue his trip, or return to where he had come from.” We’ll add: enriched by the audacity to believe in the dreams that do come true. Reading the Museum “Macura” in just that way, the passenger pilgrims wrote down in the guest book: “Thank you for a fraction of the skies…” Or: “I arrived from Belgrade, from Zeleni Venac by bus 706 to Batajnica. From Batajnica to Novi Banovci by taxi, from there I came running up to the Museum. This is my contribution to conceptual art.”

Vladimir Macura has long sought/dreamed of this place. He found it by following the path similar to the one described above. Only the journey took longer. It took years. And it ended up on one February morning on Danube.

“The Danube was a priority. Everything had to happen near water. Water reflects everything and washes everything away. Tarkovsky did not film a single movie without water.”

It is not easy to compile a biography of our interlocutor. It seems that the concrete data are not as important as energy that explains everything.

“I do not want to call myself an artist. This is the concept in which I recognised the development of an idea. Later, it was all interaction, between artists, my friends and me. And we were all, complementing each other, creating this dream. I come from the backward areas. From where there were not even pictures on the walls. I went to Ljubljana with Ljubiša Ristić to acquire the first knowledge of the avant-garde. I learned that one small paper was sometimes more important than the painting itself. My love grew with an unusual force, given the initial hunger where there was nothing. Eventually, I met people who developed my passion for collecting things. In all of this, my taste developed.”

Macura’s collection is characterized by valuable works of avant-garde art, a scenic, intriguing and funny cross-section of, primarily, the core of the Central and Southern European art of the twentieth century. Belgrade surrealism, Dadaism, Zenithism… In any case the avant-garde. Avant-garde was always doomed by clashes, conflicts, misunderstanding…

“That could have probably been some other kind of art too. I was attracted by the fact that the avant-garde was engaged, because of the misunderstand- ing that I encountered myself. It is because of the reactions and feelings that I harboured as a response to life.”

Muzej-Macura-enterijer

We learn more about the Museum “Macura” by “word of mouth” than through some advertising media campaign. We asked why this is so?

“We are a small experiment. One employee and myself. We try to adjust everything to make this unit have a life. The collection is made up of high avant-garde, it’s not a story for buses with tourists who along the way manage to see a little bit of art. To come to this museum, one needs to have education. The people with a certain sensibility find us and recognise us. There are no visible route directions for the museum “Macura”, and yet we have visits every day. This whole concept thus grows and flows like the Danube. When Robert Smithson, the author of the famous spiral Jetty in Salt Lake in Utah, was asked by journalists who he would expect at the presentation of his work, he said: I will be there, my wife, a couple of friends… I just do not want this concept to exceed what was anticipated. I certainly would not want to be a victim of this, but I’d like to share the joy with the people who come here. And I especially want to offer something to young people. They are the ones who need such space the most.”

If the concept of the museum had another name, it could probably be called like Macura’s exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts in Belgrade in 2002 – The art of the impossible. Because all that he made possible is completely amazing, almost impossible.

Author: Dragana Marković

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