October Salon 2026: Belgrade's 61st Edition Bets on Beauty in Five Venues

The 61st October Salon, Belgrade's main international exhibition of contemporary art, opens on Saturday, 7 November, and runs until 13 December. Titled Coincidence of the Universe (Slučajnost Univerzuma), this year's edition is curated by French critic Numa Hambursin, director of the MO.CO. contemporary art centre in Montpellier since 2021, and brings together 27 Serbian and international artists in five venues.

The idea: beauty as an argument

Hambursin's starting point is that notions such as beauty, the sublime and the masterpiece have been pushed out of contemporary art debate. Each venue hosts a thematic show built around that idea; the curatorial text argues that beauty is not the opposite of political commitment but one of its most effective tools.

Where to see it

Gallery Peking in Vuka Karadžića Street shows five recent graduates of the Beaux-Arts de Montpellier, selected with artist Barthélémy Toguo. The Cultural Centre of Belgrade gallery on Knez Mihailova presents a video trilogy by Louis-Cyprien Rials based on his time in Iraq, until 22 November. The Dom omladine gallery brings together artists of former Yugoslav origin based in France, including Filip Mirazović, Brankica Žilović and Marko Velk, alongside works by Vladimir Veličković and Dado. The House of Legacies (Kuća legata) shows Đorđe Ozbolt and others, and the Salon of the Belgrade City Museum hosts a larger group including Chiharu Shiota, Kader Attia, Veljko Vučković and Vladimir Milivojević Boogie.

A smaller, contested edition

The Salon is organised by the City of Belgrade, with artist Vuk Vidor chairing its board. Vreme notes that this edition is smaller than recent ones: the 59th had 50 artists in 23 venues, the 60th 40 artists in nine galleries. In August four Serbian artists withdrew, citing unequal conditions and fees for local participants, and the domestic selection shrank further after others followed.

Why it matters

This year's tightly themed, French-led edition will be judged both on the work on show and on whether it answers complaints about how local artists are treated.