Radomir Damnjanović Damnjan (Mostar, 10 December 1935) is a Serbian-Italian painter and conceptual artist. Over the course of his six-decade career, he has consistently pushed the boundaries of traditional art forms, challenging conventional understandings of creativity, authorship, and representation. His artistic practice encompasses a diverse range of media, such as painting, photography, video and installation.
He exhibited at Dokumenta in Kassel (1964), São Paulo Art Biennial (1963), Paris Biennale (1965), Venice Biennale (1966, 1976), Tokyo Biennale (1967) and International Biennial of Young Artists Danuvius (1968). He lives and works in Milan.
| Radomir Damnjanović Damnjan | |
| Birth Name: | Radomir Damnjanović Damnjan |
| Birth Date: | 1935 |
| Birth Place: | Mostar, Kingdom of Yugoslavia |
| Known For: | Visual artist |
Damnjan graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 1957 and completed his post-graduate studies in 1959. By the late 1950s, he was actively involved in the Yugoslav art scene, holding solo exhibitions at the Gallery of the Graphic in 1958 and 1960 and participating in the Danas Group.[1] His early works focused on minimal landscapes with symbolic and abstract elements, This approach later evolved into explorations of primary geometry and conceptual art, distinguishing him from the dominant artistic trends in Yugoslavia during that period.
Throughout his career, Damnjan has experienced significant transformations in his artistic practice, showcasing his engagement with various forms of art.
During his early career, Damnjan created figurative works in line with the postmodern trends of the time, like Kalemegdan (1955).[2] This work showcases his visions of contemporary landscapes, with elements of symbolism and metaphysical exploration.
In the 1960s, Damnjan began to embrace minimalism and abstraction, reducing forms to their essential elements. His series Sandy Shores (1961) and Elements in Space (1963-64) are notable for their minimalist approach, focusing on the relationship between form and space.
During the 1970s, Damnjan fully embraced conceptual art. His work took on a more activist approach, aiming to challenge audiences rather than seek their approval. In 1974, he moved from Belgrade to Milan, where he immersed himself in the Italian exhibition scene. There he held his first solo exhibition in February 1974 at Carla Ortelli Studio, showcasing In Honour of the Soviet Avant-Garde (1973), a series of eight black-and-white photographs marking his first use of photography as an artistic medium. This exhibition, along with his subsequent shows—especially at Multhipla Gallery — gained him significant international recognition, including coverage in Flash Art magazine and inclusion in Achille Bonito Oliva's influential book Europa-America. Le avanguardie diverse (1976). He exhibited his primary paintings, which were characterized by monochromatic fields and emphasized the fundamental elements of color and form, focusing on the conceptual, on the painting process itself.
Damnjan's artistic evolution occurred against the backdrop of the Cold War, marked by significant global and local social turbulences, along with the rapid development of electronic media. This environment influenced his exploration of new media and themes of appropriation and misinformation in art.[3]
He shifted his focus towards mental and conceptual aspects of art and started to question traditional notions of originality and authenticity. In his Forgery series (1975–1976), he reworked famous masterpieces by Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà, adding his own painted authorial seals to mark them as reinterpretations, challenging the conventional ideas of creativity, authorship, and intellectual property.He was using a stamp reading "Work of Verified Artistic Value" to authenticate his pieces, reinforcing their significance within the context of the art market. This approach reflected Duchamp's influence on artistic authorship and deepened the diallog of the value of originality in art. His Misinformation series (1972–1975) expanded on these themes, featuring homogeneous painted fields and mismatched inscriptions that encouraged viewers to reflect on how information is constructed and consumed.