Exhibition

Guitar Visual Art, Legat Petra Lubarde 14-19. May

FACES AND LANDSCAPES OF VOJISLAV "VOJA" KILIBARDA (1978–2023)

The exhibition "Faces and Landscapes" by Vojislav Voja Kilibarda was planned back in 2022 at the initiative of his friends: art historian Ljubica Lazić, Herceg Novi gallery owner Ljiljana Marinović, and journalist Vitka Vujnović. All of them, under the "conductor's baton" of Boško Radojković, director of the Belgrade GAF and the Herceg Novi GASF – in the segment of Guitar Visual Art, and more importantly, the festivals that Vojo loved so much. Leaving behind a huge gap, academic painter, designer, program editor for visual arts, organizer at the Herceg fest, Vojo left us, but his friends did not give up on the exhibition. Thus, it became a dedication to a brilliant artist, a great friend, a man who placed art above all.

Before the exhibition in Herceg Novi at GASF in 2023, we recorded his messages. In memory of all of us, of the always smiling man who knew how to rejoice in kind words, encounters, and success like a child, we quote his messages as an announcement of the Belgrade exhibition.

"It is nice when someone else recognizes what I wanted to say and show. For years, I have been guided in art by Lubarda's thought 'I am me, and I create the world as I wish.' This is equally readable from large format oil paintings, miniatures, photo collages, theater posters, and solutions for covers of drama texts published by the Herceg Novi Theater. I love that the range of what I have done is wide and that it implied teamwork in some parts, primarily referring to posters and books."

Only oil paintings on canvas were selected for the exhibition "Faces and Landscapes."

"The audience especially loves my oil paintings, and I am inclined to always explore…"

Vojo also answered why he singled out GASF from the wide range of Herceg Novi festivals.

"Herceg Novi is known as the city of festivals, and it truly is, and Guitar Art Summer Fest is one of those that have fully merged with the city. At the Belgrade festival, the director is also Boško Radojković, the presentation of Herceg Novi was never missed, Herceg Novi always got the best from the Belgrade programs. This is a relationship of respect that has grown into friendship. GASF is carefully planned, professionally executed, programs are known months before the start of the festival. In such a relationship, and with this brilliant festival segment Guitar visual art, cooperation is easily established, it lasts, and it is constantly improving."

He explained his creative world best.

"My creative world is a circle, a circle that is constantly open, constantly expanding, a circle in which a human is at the center, from fetus to a person moving into other dimensions, one who bears the burden of everyday life but also one who dreams, a better self, better times and relationships, from a pessimist, as we all are at some point, to one who strongly believes that art, kindness, beauty can change the world or an individual, because an individual is also a world!"

Vojislav Voja Kilibarda was a world of his own, unique, different, precious, a man who set high boundaries to everything he did, and his boundary was the sky!

He reached it too fast.

We ease our longing with memories and this exhibition.

We believe he is somewhere looking forward to it.

Friends,

Ljilja, Ljubica, Boško, Vitka, Mila, Vuk….

Vojislav "Voja" Kilibarda graduated from the "Petar Lubarda" High School of Arts in Cetinje, and graduated and obtained his master's degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Trebinje in the class of Marko Musović, which he regularly and respectfully emphasized. He gained the titles of curator, senior curator, and museum advisor. He organized solo exhibitions in Herceg Novi, Novo Mesto, Trebinje, Tivat, Sombor, Novi Sad, Belgrade, and imbued them all with love for the theater, exhibiting at the Purgatorijas, Theater Marathon, Sterija's Theater Festival, and Bitef…