Djordje Ivačković

An abstract painter and avant-garde jazz musician, Djordje Ivačković’s (1930 - 2012) artistic style was closely associated with post-war Europe and America and further developed into jazz music as an essential creative basis on powerful and vibrant canvases.

Starting to paint in the mid-1950s, Ivačković’s works were already shown in the section for French artists at the 1965 Biennale de Paris. At the early stage of his artistic career, Ivačković had already developed a recognizable visual expression – the monochromatic paintings experienced primarily as the results of the physical and gestural act of the body, painting signs and symbols inspired by music. His work underwent significant changes after the end of the 1970s, when the creative procedure became the fundamental element of his painting.

“I try to express in my paintings an analogy with contemporary jazz, which is constantly evolving. Time in jazz is the same as the foundation in painting. I try to transpose fugues, rhythm and the sound of jazz. The material is different, but the problem of instant creation is the same: liberation of emotional charge in improvisations.”

Born in Horgoš, Yugoslavia in 1930, Djordje Ivačković graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade in 1955 and lived and worked in Paris, France from 1961 until he died in 2012. His works have been widely exhibited in France and Serbia and can be found in the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade and renowned private collections.