Photo: TimeIn the next few days, the Museum of African Art in Belgrade is celebrating its Day, and the Day of Africa. The first art objects, the future exhibits of the future Museum of African Art, were brought from Africa by Veda and Zdravko Pečar thanks to the understanding of Seko Toure, the former president of Guinea
From Monday to Thursday, Museum Day and Africa Day will be celebrated in the Museum of African Art in Belgrade.
Africa Day is celebrated on May 25, when in 1963 the heads of 32 independent states of the African continent in Addis Ababa signed the charter on the creation of the first organization of independent African states - the Organization of African Unity, which grew into the African Union. The primary goal of this organization is to achieve the unity and solidarity of African countries, in accordance with the union's vision of a united, prosperous Africa, a continent of peace governed by its people.
Then of the Museum of African Art, which was founded 45 years ago, is tomorrow.
It is very likely that this museum would not exist if Veda and Zdravko Pečar had not donated their collection of African art objects to Belgrade. Apart from Rastko Petrović, Pečarevi are perhaps our most famous lovers of Africa. They spent more than 20 years there: Veda Zagorac-Pečar was the adviser for culture of the Yugoslav embassy in Tunisia, and Zdravko Pečar visited the African continent several times as a journalist, and then he was the ambassador there.
"Nothing was more natural than to become slaves to the rare beauty of Africa in the long days of Sudanese-savanna solitude." Overwhelmed by them, by their power - and we realized that even the smallest sculpture or mask is monumental - already in the first months of our stay, we decided to collect an abundance of objects whose beauty we will share with others," noted Dr. Zdravko Pečar.
The first objects of the future museum were from Guinea, where the Pecharevs traveled just at the time of the confrontation of the local people with the colonizers and with everything that had to do with them, so many works of authentic African art ended up on the pyres. "It so happened that in those days, in the heat of the revolutionary fervor, I managed to save three objects of extraordinary beauty, to place them in my hotel room and prepare them for shipment." They were the tom-tom drum, a nimbus mask from the Baga tribe that embodies the spirit of fertility so it was believed that pregnant women were under her protection, and another large mask made of metal, decorated with cowrie shells.
However, the director of the Guinea Museum saw them at the airport, judged them to be national treasures, and ordered the police to confiscate them. Zdravko Pečar did not want to give up his cases, so the president of Guinea, Seku Toure, found out about his problem and intervened. "Thus began our initiation into the art of black Africa."
The long-term presence of the Pechars in Africa made it soon known what they were collecting, so that Africans came from the farthest points of the savannah, often up to 1000 kilometers away, with bags on their backs or objects well wrapped in cloths, so that no one could see what they were carrying to a Yugoslav friend. who also visited them and visited their villages on the spot, taking an interest in masks, fetishes and ritual objects of hidden tribal mysteries.
This is how the basis of today's Museum collection was created. which contains about 2000 items from Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo, Cameroon and Congo.
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