At the proposal of the Mayor of Sarajevo, Sarajevo City Council passed the decision enabling the beginning of the construction of the Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art.
The city councillors adopted the proposal by the Mayor Abdulah Skaka to lift the ban on construction on the land where the Museum will be built, whereby the City of Sarajevo has made a significant step forward in the implementation of one of the most important cultural projects in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“This Administration has revived the almost defunct project of the construction of the Ars Aevi Musuem. I believe that the Museum will be built by the end of the mandate of this Administration and make the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina proud” said Mayor Skaka.
PE Museum of Contemporary Art Sarajevo has addressed a request to the Mayor of the City of Sarajevo to change the Decision on Development of Regulation Plan “Kvadrant C- Marijin Dvor” in order to lift the ban on construction on the lots 3362/2, 3361/4, 3369/11 and 3369/14 Novo Sarajevo I (new survey) with the aim of building the Museum of Contemporary Art Ars Aevi.
Development Planning Agency of Sarajevo Canton, as leader of development of this planning document, have issued a decision giving consent to add an amendment to the Article 11 whereby the land in question is exempted from the ban on construction
for the purpose of building the Museum.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Ars Aevi was founded in 1992 during wartime. A group of enthusiasts headed by Enver Hadžiomerspahić invited world renown artists to donate their works, as a token of solidarity with besieged Sarajevo, and in that way create a collection of the future Museum of Contemporary Arts in Sarajevo.
The unique Ars Aevi collection, consisting of 150 works donated by some of the most well known local and international artists, arrived in Sarajevo in 1999.
Today this collection is considered as one of the most important collections of contemporary arts in South East Europe. A part of the collection is exhibited in the depot of the Ars Aevi Museum in the Youth House, where the collection will be kept until the Museum building at Wilson’s Lane is completed.
The design of the Museum was made by renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano, who made the design and donated funds for development of the pedestrian bridge over Miljacka in the vicinity of the future Ars Aevi Museum.
For the past few years the Ars Aevi Museum in Sarajevo has held numerous exhibitions of acclaimed artists who have donated their works to the Museum, such as Michaelangelo Pistolleto, Joseph Kosuth, Joseph Beuys, Bizhan Bassiri, Maja Bajević, Jusuf Hadžifejzović, Jannis Kounellis.
