The first Ekata festival will be opened on Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 6 p.m., at the Ekata Estate in Krnjevo. The festival opens with the exhibition Radomir Damnjanović Damnjan and Gorgona: continuity of conceptual practice, dedicated to one of the most important artists of post-war Yugoslav and European art, with a contextual review of the work of the Zagreb art group Gorgona. After the opening of the exhibition, the program will continue with a concert by the Belgrade Jazz Orchestra in the Atrium of Ekata Estate, starting at 7 p.m.
Individual tickets or tickets for all festival days can be purchased via the Tickets platform.
Krnjevo as a new point on the map of European art
With this program, Ekata Estate begins a new exhibition cycle realized in cooperation with the Marinko Sudac Foundation from Zagreb, one of the most important regional institutions dedicated to research, preservation and international presentation of avant-garde and neo-avant-garde artistic practices. The exhibition of Radomir Damnjanović Damnjan is the first in a series of projects that will be presented in Ekata over the next three years, with the intention of opening the key issues of the art of the second half of the 20th century and its contemporary relevance through carefully conceived exhibitions.
Radomir Damnjanović Damnjan and the Gorgon presented as part of the European history of the avant-garde
The exhibition Radomir Damnjanović Damnjan and Gorgon: Continuity of Conceptual Practice brings a focused insight into Damnjan's artistic development, from the end of the fifties to the latest works, including the cycle Pictures from 2019/2020. year. Through a selection of works from different periods, the exhibition follows the artist's path from the early painting phase and the gradual abandonment of the traditional understanding of the image, through key conceptual shifts and media research, to later works in which the issue of the image is reopened as a complex space of thought, structure and meaning.
Damnjan's work occupies a special place in the history of art because it cannot be reduced to a single discipline, medium or formal procedure. His practice developed through painting, drawing, conceptual works and performative actions, always with a clear awareness that a work of art is not only an object, but also a thought process, a decision, a gesture and a system of relationships. This is precisely why this exhibition does not approach Damnjan's oeuvre as a closed retrospective, but as a living continuity of one of the most consistent conceptual positions in the post-war art of the region.
EKATA Festival Krnjevo 2026, foto: Promo
The special importance of the exhibition is reflected in its connection of Damnjan's oeuvre with the historical and theoretical horizon of Gorgona. Damnjan's exhibition in Studio G in Zagreb in 1962 represents one of the important meeting points with artists and theoreticians who, in a local and international context, in an extremely early and consistent way questioned the autonomy of the artwork, the limits of artistic expression and the very nature of the artistic act.
Ekata Estate establishes a new program direction
With this exhibition, Ekata Estate opens a new program direction and clearly sets the ambition of future exhibition projects. Ekata is not only taking shape as a place of events, but as a space where art is presented with an awareness of its historical weight, contemporary relevance and the possibility of wider cultural exchange. In this sense, the Damnjan and Gorgon exhibition marks the beginning of a program that introduces artistic phenomena of exceptional importance to Krnjevo and opens them to a new audience, regional context and international dialogue.
Jazz as the sonic equivalent of conceptual freedom
The opening night will be rounded off with a performance by the Belgrade Jazz Orchestra, which gathers prominent Serbian jazz musicians, led by vocal soloist Aleksandra Bijelić. For this occasion, the orchestra is preparing a special repertoire that includes different musical genres, from authentic swing and jazz, to popular and film music, to sumptuous vocal arrangements. The program brings world classics and recognizable compositions by local authors, designed as a festive musical journey through different eras, styles and atmospheres.
With the opening of the first Ekata Festival, Ekata Estate is established as a new meeting place of art, music, architecture and international cultural cooperation, with the ambition to present important artistic phenomena in a contemporary and publicly relevant framework.
EKATA Festival Krnjevo 2026, foto: Nataša Popović
