Is Belgrade’s Art Market an Ornament for Urban Rebranding?

Since the late 2010s, a metamorphosis has taken hold of Belgrade’s contemporary art scene. It is most visible in the proliferation of new galleries clustered within the city’s historical centre and its more affluent neighborhoods, such as Dorćol and Vračar.

This is no mere coincidence: it is a byproduct of a calculated pivot in the ruling government’s cultural policy. Moving away from traditional state patronage, the administration has embraced a ‘creative city’ approach, funnelling investment into creative industries as a companion to the country’s burgeoning IT sector.

This strategy mirrors the urban and political facelift seen in Tirana, Albania, during Edi Rama’s tenure as mayor and later as prime minister. In both cases, there is an explicit attempt to rebrand an ex-socialist, war-weary nation into a modern, vibrant European hub.

By polishing the city’s cultural exterior, the state signals to the international community that the country is open for business, using art as a sophisticated tool for soft power and attracting foreign investment. However, this glossy veneer often masks deep-seated structural issues that continue to plague the local art scene.

Historically, Belgrade’s art infrastructure has been – and largely remains – centralised around a public museum-gallery complex and state-funded universities. The vast majority of artists are still groomed within faculties of the city’s University of Arts in Belgrade, which despite their prestige, remain relatively conservative institutions. Their curricula are often strictly partitioned by traditional media – painting, sculpture, printmaking – and struggle to keep pace with the fluid, interdisciplinary currents of global art making.

In sharp contrast, the Faculty for Media and Communications at Singidunum University has emerged as a hub for more radical, contemporary thought. Its digital art seminars have cultivated a generation of artists who are significantly more attuned to new media, postinternet aesthetics and current global movements. Beyond fine artists, this private institution has also shaped a cohort of competent designers who navigate the intersection of commerce and culture with far more agility than their counterparts in public academies. The scene is also peppered with architects and self-educated polymaths who bypass these formal structures entirely, contributing to a more eclectic, if fragmented, ecosystem.