Ljubodrag Andric. Spaces, Thresholds, Lights – BUILDING in collaboration with Fondazione Giorgio Cini

Ljubodrag Andric. Spaces, Thresholds, Lights
curated by Francesco Tedeschi

Exhibition venues:

Venice – I CHAPTER
from April 18th to September 8th, 2025

Palazzo Cini. La Galleria (link)
Dorsoduro 864, Campo San Vio, 30123 Venice
Wednesday – Monday, 11 – 19
ticketed entrance
opening: Thursday April 17th, 2025 from 2PM to 6PM

Milan – II CHAPTER
from September 9th to October 11th, 2025

BUILDING GALLERY

via Monte di Pietà 23, 20121 Milano
Tuesday – Saturday, 10 – 19
free entry
opening: Tuesday September 9th, 2025 from 5PM to 8PM

BUILDING presents Ljubodrag Andric. Spaces, Thresholds, Lights, an exhibition project curated by Francesco Tedeschi and realized in collaboration with the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice. The exhibition unfolds in two distinct chapters, each dedicated to the works of photographer Ljubodrag Andric (Belgrade, 1965). The first chapter takes place from April 18th to September 8th, 2025, at the second floor of Palazzo Cini. La Galleria in Venice, coinciding with the 19th International Architecture Exhibition; the second chapter will be held from September 9th to October 11th, 2025, in the exhibition spaces of BUILDING GALLERY in Milan.

This photographic exhibition, structured in two chapters, explores Ljubodrag Andric’s investigation of places and architecture, highlighting how his language diverges from traditional photography while still employing its techniques and materials to achieve a form of representation independent of objective reality. Although the origin of each image is always a specific place—referenced in the title of the work—Andric’s photographs transcend reality, touching on a deeper and immaterial dimension.
A distinctive aspect of the artist’s works is their painterly and sculptural quality: wall surfaces, marks on walls, and architectural structures emerge as traces of a reality that transcends time and matter. Through meticulous research on light, reflections, color, and material, Andric constructs enigmatic and suspended images.

The first chapter of the exhibition project, Ljubodrag Andric. Spaces, Thresholds, Lights, hosted in the spaces of Palazzo Cini. La Galleria in Venice from April 18th to September 8th, 2025, presents a selection of about 15 works. These images create a dialogue between the visual experiences the artist developed during his travels in India from 2021 to 2024 and the lagoon city, reflecting his residencies at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. The exhibition path, through a play of references and resonances, explores the correspondences between Venetian and Indian architecture in a distant yet connected dialogue of light and shadow, intertwining the historical layers of the lagoon city with the intimate and suspended atmospheres of India’s heartland. The photographs convey a sense of dematerialization: architectural structures reveal absolute qualities of space and light, enriched by meanings that transcend their original function, opening up to a visual and sensory depth beyond material reality. The theme of the threshold—of crossing or transitioning through something—becomes a leitmotif that welcomes and bids farewell to visitors, symbolizing a journey that is both physical and introspective. Within the exhibition, light shapes and structures intertwine in a dialogue between interior and exterior through traces and memories of places, times, and things. The mystery enveloping certain exhibition rooms is intensified by the metamorphic and metaphorical nature of Andric’s sensual and thought-provoking images, which herald the transformation of space into luminous matter. The works displayed at Palazzo Cini. La Galleria appear to be suspended between reality and abstraction, transcending the visual dimension and inviting the viewer to a deeper contemplation of the photographic works.

The exhibition Ljubodrag Andric. Spaces, Thresholds, Lights, continues with the second chapter from September 9th to October 11th, 2025, in Milan at BUILDING GALLERY, showcasing a different selection of approximately 25 photographic works by the artist. The exhibition path unfolds across the three floors of the gallery, with a thematic division specifically designed in dialogue with BUILDING’s architecture.

The ground floor will display works that narrate a sequence of architectural forms exploring interiors, exteriors, and surfaces through the artist’s various visual solutions. The exhibition continues on the first floor, with a selection of photographs delving into the theme of the threshold, presenting works centered on enigmatic thresholds or blind windows, offering an interpretation of this theme in relation to the arrangement of works within the space. Finally, the second floor will host a collection of photographs exclusively portraying glimpses of historic architecture in Italy, characterized by an aspiration to dematerialize architecture into pure luminous essence. This second chapter will present works by the artist that reveal architectural traces with organic qualities, unpredictable and labyrinthine trajectories, in an exhibition path where Andric’s images further transform the architectural object into metaphor.

Over the years, Ljubodrag Andric has developed a precise photographic investigation centered on place, where photography itself becomes a tool for creating images that aspire to the absolute. His works autonomously detach from their original subject in a process that surpasses mere visual representation. Initially focused on the architectural details of buildings from different eras and contexts, Andric establishes a profound relationship with the history and energy of spaces, going beyond their mere formal appearance. His photographic process extends beyond the instantaneity of the captured image, reaching a result that borders on abstraction—where the consistency of the image itself becomes a tangible material of tension, a balance between sign and archetype. In this process, post-production plays a crucial role, fostering a dynamic dialogue between photographic, pictorial, and sculptural language. Furthermore, through architecture—the central subject of his works—Andric creates an interconnection with rhythmic, musical, and interior readings, where the organic vitality seamlessly merges with the structural rigor of construction. These images, suspended between reality and abstraction, transcend mere visual representation, inviting the viewer into a deeper state of contemplation.

The exhibition project Ljubodrag Andric. Spaces, Thresholds, Lights is accompanied by the publication of two catalogs, published by BUILDING editore and realized in collaboration with the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. The first volume, dedicated to the Venetian chapter of the exhibition, includes contributions by curator Francesco Tedeschi, architect Renata Codello, and Chiara Casarin, respectively Secretary General and Head of Cultural Development and Communication at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. The second volume, documenting the entire exhibition project, features critical texts by curator Francesco Tedeschi, Professor Marta Braun, photography historian, and Professor Andrea Pinotti, expert in aesthetics and image theory.

In collaboration with Fondazione Giorgio Cini (link)