Tomislav Peternek is a photographer and photo reporter who recorded practically all key moments and protests in Yugoslavia with his camera. He began his career as a photographer in 1954 and his pictures have been published in leading international newspapers and magazines. In his opus that covers a period of sixty years, Tomislav Peternek recorded numerous significant historical events and personalities, everyday situations and ordinary people. He was a leading protagonist of the modernist trend in photography that broke with the aesthetics of socialist realism and turned towards promoting the artistic value of photography.
The photographs from the collection record scenes of the protests against the murder of Patrice Lumumba in 1961 and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam in 1967, while the pictures from the ‘Red University’ series that show the clashes between militia and students in 1968 are among the most significant images. On June 3, 1968, students from Belgrade University set off from New Belgrade towards the building of the rector’s office located in the old part of the city with the intention of demonstrating and stating their demands. They were soon stopped by a militia cordon. Veljko Vlahović and Miloš Minić, top officials in the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, spoke to the students and tried to convince them not to rally. However, militia and students clashed, resulting in injuries to at least four people. The following day, the students occupied the building of the rector’s office and proclaimed their programme. One of their demands called for changing the university’s name to the ‘Karl Marx Red University’. The occupation lasted seven days, while the protests spread to Yugoslavia’s larger university centres. It was ended by a television address by Josip Broz Tito in which he allegedly supported the students, acknowledging that irregularities did exist and should be removed. At that time a photo reporter with the Belgrade weekly ‘NIN’, Tomislav Peternek recorded the shocking scenes of the riots at the overpass in New Belgrade.
The following photographs were purchased by the Collection of New Art Media at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2017: ‘Student Unrest. The “Red University”’, (Belgrade, 1968), ‘”Curiosity”, Tito’s Arrival’ (Belgrade, 1960) and ‘New Year Morning' (Belgrade, 1960). The photographs ‘Protest Against the Assassination of Patrice Lumumba’ (1961) and ‘Ingenious Fans’ (1966) were donated to the Museum by the author. These photographs are all displayed as part of the exhibition, ‘Sequences. Art of Yugoslavia and Serbia from the Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art’, which opened the newly renovated Museum building in October 2017.
