The museography of thematics at the National Gallery of Serbian Art in Novi Sad.

The stereotypical version of the museum or art gallery, the one often recognized by the public, would be about a permanent chronologicaldisplay, with an exhibition itinerary matching a timeline, often not all-encompassing, made up of autograph works, school of, circle of or sphere of--a list as long as art historical spheres need. One could thus summarize the experience as a journey not unlike what a time machine could offer us, albeit hypothetically. But does chronology still work for a non-expert audience? Less and less so for the younger generation. For those who care only about the pleasure of experience, chronologies often matter little. In fact, the museum’s coveted enjoyment goes far beyond dates and chronologies and can vary greatly depending on how we interpret it.

As the magazine ’Drawing’ in a recent article: “Chronological displays are not really chronological at all, in the sense of a rigid sequence from oldest to newest. Numerous other variables--starting with purely physical considerations such as size and shape of the works--come into play.” Then there would be to consider the museographic concept of the "white cube," often associated with a chronology of a subjective, albeit scientifically correct but ever-changing art history, where works are displayed in a neutral space with white walls that create an unobtrusive frame to make them stand out. Brian O’Doherty tells us this very well in a series of essays first published by Artforum magazine in 1976. It is a widespread concept, to such an extent that it is often recognized as the only exhibition model to be considered. In the case of the Mediterranean museum, however, with an often historical container equivalent to the musealized content it often holds, the ’white cube’ becomes a problematic concept not only in application. The white walls, often lacking windows, which often lead museums to blur the architectural language of the container, do not represent a choice of balance between content and container. Moreover, in trying to present art as a luxury good, to be collected even as a potential investment, the museum increasingly approaches a theoretical disconnection of works from their rich historical, cultural and social context, promoting a poor understanding of the “context of production.” As Whitney Birkett in an essay she published in 2012, the white cube can sometimes “excessively elevate art, distancing it from its origins and making it less accessible to those who do not know it thoroughly, risking unintentionally reinforcing traditional power dynamics.” But are there alternatives? Yes, and they have been experimented with for quite a while.

Thematic would be one of the possible alternatives. It would be a display made in response to a choice of themes or topics, and there are not a few museums that have chosen this approach: significant recent examples we could cite would include the Ateneum Art Museum at the Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki, the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, and theHunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow. But what might be glimpsed as recent experimentation is actually not so! As early as 1982, more than forty years ago, the Tate Gallery in London experimented with thematic exhibitions, then consolidated the choices pioneered at that early time in 2000, with a choice of themes under the banner of Landscape, Matter, Environment and Still Life, Object, Real Life. It is also worth mentioning Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne , which uses thematic as a creative and non-chronological mode in exploring the “survival of the ancient.” In the case of Aby Warburg’s project, we are in the late 1920s. The last institution to undertake this initiative is the Galerija Matice Srpske in Novi Sad, the most important metropolis in the north of the country, often dubbed “the Athens of Serbia.”

The new exhibit, which opened last November, was built around thematic narratives by making positive use of the strengths of the museum’s collection. On the second floor of the museum, the exhibition itinerary presents the history of the collection as the outcome of Serbian art history over a five-century span , with the masterpieces of the collection brought together in a particular room flanked by thematic narratives about artistic materials and techniques. The exhibition itinerary on the second floor goes further, with a choice of very current themes and topics, always keeping public enjoyment in the foreground. The choice covers themes with titles such as ’Refuge: man and the environment,’ ’Taboo: body and mind,’ and ’Pleasure: rituals and habits.’ Prominent is ’Sculptophilia,’ a tribute to sculpture in all its forms up to the contemporary.

The layout offers various dialogues between artworks displayed in a varied manner, often in groups, but sometimes also in isolation serving as a gateway to the theme of the room. The curatorial choices made mean that chronology becomes a much less frequently used ingredient even if traceable in some parts of the exhibition itinerary. It becomes, for example, an iterator to present stylistic changes and turning points regarding aesthetic taste and collecting. In fact, the history of the collection, rather than the history of art, is one of the narratives that the new layout presents to the museum audience. An arrangement, then, that seeks to transform the museum into a relevant and accessible institution for the museum public in the twenty-first century.

The exhibition project at Galerija Matice Srpske in Novi Sad represents a valuable opportunity to deepen the discourse around thematic displays that are increasingly found in museums around the world.

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