Born in 1951 in the former Yugoslavia, Milenko graduated with a Master’s degree in Fine Arts (Painting) from the Institutul de Arte Plastice “Nicolae Grigorescu”. From 1994, Milenko was the Dean at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Singapore’s LASALLE College of the Arts. He currently holds the post of Senior Fellow at the institution. He also founded Tropical Lab, an intensive and highly engaging art camp for graduate students from various art colleges and institutions worldwide.
Milenko has exhibited extensively in Europe since 1971 and in Asia since 1993. He has been invited to hold solo exhibitions within Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney and Jakarta and most notably the Biennale of Sydney in 2006.
Apart from his numerous artistic ventures, Milenko contributed largely to art education through the participation in symposiums and art workshops worldwide. In addition, he acted as visiting professor at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Japan and Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey.
Milenko was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2011, and Singapore’s Cultural Medallion for Visual Arts in 2012 by the National Arts Council for his contributions in enriching Singapore’s visual art scene. He also received, in early 2012, the Silver Medallion for Knights in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Embassy. In 2020 Milenko received 22nd Sava Šumanović Fine Art Award, Serbian national art award for Visual Arts.
His work is in various private and public collections, such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Serbia; Singapore Art Museum, National Gallery Singapore and Museum of Contemporary Drawing, Nurnberg, Germany, among others.
He became a Singapore citizen in 2002.
Milenko’s paintings are informed by his personal experiences, and nonetheless engage with issues pertinent in society; in doing so, his works convey a distinct visual language. His paintings further question the representative nature of painting by examining the relationship between abstraction and figuration. The figurative elements employed in his paintings are, at the same time, amorphous and highly ambiguous, thereby defying identification and categorization. In recent years between 2009 and 2012, Milenko’s work has developed a new phase with dialogue between abstractions. The artist offers options to both viewing and reading his work through the use of titles; such titles often are written into a work on canvas, more so than simply suggesting a subject, they offer critical cognition on the images formation process, setting a direction that suggests his artwork needs to be viewed as a site for close examination.
Education
1975 | Master of Fine Arts (Painting), Institute of Fine Arts, Bucharest, Romania
Selected Solo Exhibitions
- 2019 | Abstraction for Beginners, HAOS Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia
- 2015 | Milenko Prvacki: E La Nave Va (and the ship sails on), iPreciation, Singapore
- 2014 | Johor Strait, Bergamont Station Art Centre, Santa Monica, California, USA
- 2012 | Milenko Prvacki: A Survey 1979 – 2012 (curated by Charles Merewether), Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore
- 2012 | Remembrance of Things Past, iPreciation, Hong Kong
- 2007 | Recollection, Taksu Gallery, Singapore
- 2006 | Construction Site, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
Selected Duo Exhibitions
- 2020 | Topography of Hybrid Imagery (with Delia Prvacki), iPreciation, Singapore
- 2019 | Big Hug (with Delia Prvacki), Children Biennale 2019: Embracing Wonder, National Gallery Singapore
- 2016 | Construction Site 2016, (with Delia Prvacki), Esplanade Concourse, Esplanade, Singapore
- 2014 | Passage: Sculptures and Paintings by Delia and Milenko Prvacki, Luxe Art Museum, Singapore
- 2009 | Trajectory (with Delia Prvacki), Combinart Studio, Singapore
- 2008 | Opening Show of Combinart Studio (with Delia Prvacki), Singapore
- 1998 | Fire in Kakadu (with Delia Prvacki), Art Forum Gallery, Singapore
- 1993 | LASALLE Gallery (with Delia Prvacki), Singapore
Selected Group Exhibitions
- 2019 | iPreciation 20th Anniversary: Reverie Collection – 25 Years of Art Collecting Journey, iPreciation Gallery, Singapore
- 2019 | iPreciation at Taipei Dangdai 2019, Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, Taipei, Taiwan
- 2019 | Touch Giving Art, The Arts House, Singapore
- 2019 | Sava Stepanov Collection, Gallery Matica Srpska, Novi Sad, Serbia
- 2019 | Children’s Biennale 2019, Ngee Ann Kongsi Concourse Gallery, Singapore
- 2019 | Hyper-realism and Postmodernism, Contemporary Art Gallery, Zrenjanin, Serbia
- 2018 | VIII Tashkent International Biennale of Contemporary Art
- 2018 | Departure 3, iPreciation Gallery, Singapore
- 2018 | Art New York, Pier 94, Art Miami, USA
- 2018 | Hangzhou Gallery, China / EC Gallery, Singapore
- 2015 | The Cultural Medallion and Visual Arts 1979 – 2015, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore
- 2014 | Market Forces, Erasure: From Conceptualism to Abstraction, Osage Gallery and City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
- 2014 | Departure, iPreciation Gallery, Singapore
- 2014 | Do you believe in Angels? MO_Space, Manila Philippines and Singapore
- 2013 | Island Vernacular, Peninsula Arts with Plymouth University, UK
- 2013 | The Realm in the Mirror, the Vision out of Image (curated by Feng Boyi), Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum, China
- 2013 | Postmodernism in Vojvodina (1976 – 1990), Museum of Contemporary Art Volvodina, Novi Sad and Gallery Kulturni Center, Belgrade, Servia
- 2013 | Cascadence – SG Redux, iPreciation Gallery, Singapore
- 2012 | Panorama – Recent Art from Contemporary Asia, Singapore Art Museum
Awards
- 2012 | Cultural Medallion Award, Singapore
- 2011 | Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France
- 1986 | Special Jury Award, Academie Internationale De Lutece, France
- 1986 | Ex Tempore Art Symposium Award, Piran, Slovenia
- 1985 | Special Jury Award, 17th International Painting / Exhibition, Cagnes sur Mer, France
- 1982 | 2nd International Drawing Triennial, Museum of Contemporary Drawing Award and Faber Castel Award Nurnberg, Germany
- 1982 | Ex Tempore Art Symposium Award, Piran, Slovenia
- 1981 | MP Award, 1st Watercolour Biennale, Karlovac, Croatia
- 1980 | Annual Art Society Award, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia
- 1980 | IM Award for Drawing, International Portrait, Drawing Exhibition, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina
- 1980 | Award for Best Annual Solo Exhibition, Kolarceva Zaduzbina, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
- 1974 | Pesak Summer Painting Symposium Award, Pancevo, Yugoslavia
Selected Permanent Collections
- National Museum, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
- Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
- National Gallery, Singapore
- Gallery of New South Wells, Sydney, Australia
- NUS Museum, National University of Singapore, Singapore
And many other private and public collections throughout Southeast Asia and Europe. For full list of exhibitions and collections, please contact the gallery at enquiry@ipreciation.com
Images of artworks
