Vesna Pavlović

Professor of Art; Department Chair
Paul E. Shwab Chair in Fine Arts

Vesna Pavlović is a Professor of Art at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She received her MFA in Visual Arts at Columbia University in 2007, and BA in Cinematography at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade in 2002. In the 1990s, in Belgrade, Pavlović worked closely with feminist pacifist group Women in Black. She provided artistic witness to the disintegration of her native Yugoslavia through documentary work. In her work, Pavlović examines photographic representation of specific political and cultural histories. These representations include photographic archives and related artifacts, which she treats as material to produce new images and installations. She challenges traditional modes of photographic representation, expanding the photographic image beyond its frame, traditional format, and the narrative. 

She is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2024 NEA Art Projects Award, 2022 Tennessee Arts Commission Arts Access Grant, 2021 Current Art Fund Grant, 2020 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, 2018 Fulbright Scholar Award, 2017 George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation grant, and Art Matters Foundation grant in 2012. Pavlović exhibited widely, including solo shows at Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Museum of History of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, and Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. She participated in a number of group shows, including the Untitled, 12th Istanbul Biennial, 2011, Turkey; MAC – Metropolitan Arts Center, Belfast, Northern Ireland; Württembergischen Kunstverein, Düsseldorf, Germany; KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia; Zachęta, National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland; New Art Gallery Walsall, UK; Bucharest Biennale 5, Romania; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, USA; NGBK, Berlin, Germany; and Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK. Recent publications include Vesna Pavlović, Stagecraft (Vanderbilt University Press, 2021) and Vesna Pavlović’s Lost Art: Photography, Display, and the Archive (Hanes Art Gallery, Wake Forest University, 2018).

Gallery Representation:

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