Bogdan Borčić & Johnny Friedlaender: Dialogue

19th Exhibition in the Graphic Cabinet of Bogdan Borčić

Opening: 8 February 2025 at 11am

As part of the 19th exhibition in the Graphic Cabinet of Bogdan Borčić, the works of two great artists and masters of printmaking, Bogdan Borčić and Johnny Friedlaender, are placed in dialogue. Friedlaender had a significant influence on Borčić in the late 1950s, during the formative years of his artistic career. Friedlaender lived and worked in Paris, where he ran an open printmaking studio that served as a production and educational platform. Artists from all over the world – including some important artists from Slovenia – visited his studio in order to improve their technical mastery of graphic techniques.

The dialogue between Friedlaender’s and Borčić’s works testifies to the connection and flow of ideas and thoughts in the visual arts of the 1950s and 1960s. Friedlaender’s works belong to the period 1954-1959, when he was closely connected to the Ljubljana art scene, and during which he worked in the spirit of extremely stylised, but still partly figurative art. There is also a work from around 1965, when his practice had already shifted towards a completely non-mimetic visual language. His prints are placed alongside Borčić’s works from the period 1957-1965, when his practice was rapidly developing in the direction of Art Informel. On display is a selection of woodcuts that he made just before leaving for Paris, and prints in the intaglio technique that were created during and after his training in Friedlaender’s studio. The exhibition thus represents a fragment in the closely intertwined mosaic of the development of modern art in Europe, when the idea of Art Informel also became firmly anchored in Slovenian and Yugoslav art.

The exhibition Bogdan Borčić & Johnny Friedlaender: In Dialogue is on display until 25 January 2026. The exhibition is a result of cooperation with MGLC – International Centre of Graphic Arts from Ljubljana, and a private owner, who kindly lent Friedlaender’s prints.