The Italian Ambassador to Serbia, H.E. Luca Gori, attended the opening of the exhibition titled “On a Leap Day”, dedicated to the Italo-Serbian artist Damjan Đakov, hosted at the Ilija M. Kolarac Foundation in Belgrade.
The exhibition, which will remain open to the public until 28 February 2026, features over forty works, mainly created in the 1990s, regarded as the period of the artist’s full maturity. For the first time in Serbia, the exhibition brings together an organic body of works produced during Damjan Đakov’s long residence and professional activity in Italy, from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, thus fulfilling a wish expressed by the artist himself that the paintings created in Italy would one day return to Belgrade.
The works on display were commissioned for the exhibition by the Bugno Art gallery in Venice, which represented Damjan Đakov in Italy for many years. A significant contribution to the project was made by Vito Mancuso, who authored the preface to the catalogue. The exhibition has been organised by the Ilija M. Kolarac Foundation, whose Director, Aleksandar Peković, was a long-standing friend of the artist, with curatorial contributions from Aleksandra Đurišić and Milan Đakov, Damjan’s brother.
The initiative, promoted with the support of the Italian Embassy in Belgrade and the Italian Cultural Institute, highlights the value of cultural diplomacy as a tool for dialogue and for strengthening relations between Italy and Serbia.
“With this exhibition, we wish to emphasise the profound cultural and human bond that linked Damjan Đakov to Italy, the country in which the artist lived and worked for over twenty years, establishing himself within the international contemporary painting scene,” stated the Italian Ambassador to Serbia, Luca Gori. “We invite our Serbian friends to visit this remarkable exhibition which – together with the Farnesina Collection exhibition, also currently on display in Belgrade – once again underscores the role of cultural diplomacy in fostering relations between our two countries.”