MILUTIN DEDIĆ (1935-2021), Heavenly guardian of heritage

Drawing exhibition, Prometheus gallery, Novi Sad, June

14-06-2023

The exhibition was organized by Dimitrije Vujadinović. The voluminous travelogues of Milutin Dedić record stories about the world of mills and millers in Serbia, about a life in which the real and the unreal intertwine for centuries. With his sharp pen and lucid notes, he carved forgotten streams and their owners into paper. He is not a mere draftsman of wooden and stone flour houses. Dedić is looking for the metaphysical in the landscape of "mysterious forces" and in the faces of "fairy favorites but also eternal fighters with vampires". .

Dedić's preoccupation became ethnological and cultural research of Serbia's cultural heritage. Erudita Milutin Dedić compiled 40 bound books, which number about ten thousand pages, filled with notes, and with four thousand portraits and three thousand drawings. There are another two thousand works of a larger format in special blocks.

Milutin wrote about his work: "The discussion about the relationship between tradition and modernity will make sense only if contemporaries realize that they are responsible for preserving what is left of the past not so much for themselves as for future generations, but also because of the fact that the roots are there our identity." 

With his life and overall work, Milutin Dedić is a heavenly guardian of heritage who opposes the threatening global ruin.

He was a columnist for Večernje novosti for many years (Slikarev marathon), and a regular columnist for Bijela čela magazine (Rijeka, Croatia). For RTS, he recorded many documentary programs about the cultural and historical heritage of Serbia. Unfortunately, his departure ended the extremely valuable author's show Zapisi sa predumijaj, broadcast every Friday at 1:45 pm on the Second Program of Radio Belgrade.

This exhibition contributes to the preservation of experience and memory. Memories that are identity - because if we don't remember anything, we don't know who we are, where we come from, or where we're going. And precisely the need to remember is one of the basic driving motives of every individual and society as a whole.

I would especially like to point out the expertly done portraits of millers. The face is a picture of the soul and the time lived. Those portraits are a tribute to people and their right to live as they are. On the faces of the millers, Milutin Dedić subtly depicts a thin line that connects the physical transience and the metaphysical uncertainty of human life. These are not only portraits of real millers, they are also our portraits.

Through his life and overall work, Milutin Dedić was a heavenly guardian of heritage who opposes the threatening global revolution.

It was a great pleasure to meet such a man as Milutin Dedić. Our topics of conversation were mills and the history and culture of bread. I have not met anyone who knew as much about it as Milutin. We jointly organized several of his exhibitions on the subject.

Dimitrije Vujadinović