Olga Jevrić
This first ever monograph in English on Olga Jevrić offers a unique opportunity to discover the work of a remarkable Serbian artist whose long and distinguished career established her as the most significant modernist sculptor from the former Yugoslavia.
Despite gaining widespread acclaim from her contemporaries both in Europe and the USA, economic, social and geopolitical upheavals meant that her work has been little seen outside Serbia in the past four decades.
As a witness to the Second World War and its aftermath, Jevrić sought to give voice to the spiritual roots, cultural foundation and social conditions of the war-torn environment in which her work developed.
Through her materials – primarily a mixture of cement, iron oxide, rods and nails – she created distinctive forms that communicate the relationship between matter and void; weight and weightlessness; containment and release. Though many of her works are modest in scale, they have an immensely powerful presence.
This collection of texts and images provides a range of perspectives on, and a thorough contextual overview of, Jevrić’s work from some of the UK’s most influential sculptors, alongside prominent art historians from the former Yugoslavia. It was produced in celebration of Jevrić's exhibitions at London art platforms PEER (28 June–14 September 2019) and Handel Street Projects (28 June–13 December 2019), along with the acquisition of nine of her sculptures by Tate Modern.
Ingrid Swenson MBE was Director of the influential and community-based independent art platform PEER from 1998 until 2021. She was awarded the MBE in 2018 for services to the arts in East London. Fedja Klikovac is a Montenegrin artist and art historian and, more recently, a gallerist and curator. He is the Director of Handel Street Projects, a London-based platform for new British and international contemporary art. Dame Phyllida Barlow RA is a British sculptor and professor emerita of the Slade School of Art, where she taught for over 40 years. She represented Great Britain at the 2017 Venice Biennale and was awarded a DBE in 2021 for services to art. Richard Deacon RA is one of the UK's leading sculptors, and taught in art schools in the UK and abroad from 1977-1992. The Welsh-born artist won the Turner Prize in 1987 and represented Wales at the 2007 Venice Biennale. He was given a CBE in 1999, having been previously awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Dr Ješa Denegri is a widely published Serbian art historian and critic. Born in what is now Croatia, he worked as a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade from 1965-1991, after which he served as a Professor of Philosophy. Joan Key is an artist, curator and writer living and working in London. Primarily known as a painter and printmaker, she has recently collaborated with musicians, composers and animators.