The Mihajlović – Phoenix Foundation is dedicated to the development of fiction and figuration in traditional painting, which has continued to develop independently of technological innovations. The Biennale, whose organizers and patrons we are, is a natural extension of our desire to help the region’s most talented artists, through promotion in art criticism and the media, and through the purchase of works for the foundation’s collection.

In the last century, Belgrade was a meeting place for fruitful artistic exchanges within famous artistic groups and movements such as the Mediala, whose protagonists were recognized as bearers of philosophical thought and aesthetic sensibility. The Biennale was conceived as the engine of development of traditional painting, which today, more than ever before, has something to offer modern man: free imagination, storytelling, technical skill, sensitivity and beauty. Our goal is that Serbia, which is rich in both ingenious painters and collectors of figural painting, become a new center of the art of fiction, metaphysics, magical realism and surrealism in the region, and in the future – in the world.

The “Mihajlović – Phoenix Foundation” collection is an imposing, family collection of authentic paintings and drawings, selected with love, which represents the best contemporary artists in Serbia in the right way. It combines representative works of renowned creators of different generations and sensibilities, successors of cultural heritage – in favor of the traditional, fantastic but also out-of-appearance. The uniqueness of this collection lies in the refined, careful selection of individual works, from the rich opuses of contemporary painters. After the first Biennale, the collection became richer for several new works. You can see some of the collection’s artworks here: