SADKO HADŽIHASANOVIĆ
The Best of Sadko
15 June – 4 July 2026
Sadko Hadžihasanović (1959) has been living and working in Toronto for three decades, bridging thecultural models of the West and the transitions of the East. Among the fortunate circumstances is his artistic education, through which he assimilated the qualities of both the Sarajevo and Belgrade
schools of art. Likewise, during the 1980s, his participation in relevant exhibitions earned him a reputation as an established young artist in Yugoslavia. The shifts in the poetic and visual concepts of his work over decades have been organic, and each change of environment at key points in his journey—from Sarajevo to Belgrade to Toronto—heightened initial questions of identity, ideology, aesthetics and ethics, mainstream versus local, the autonomy of the artwork, and the culture of artistic language.
Moving to Canada was certainly a major challenge; life experience confirms that resilient people with vision do overcome the hardships of emigration, adapt to the social norms of a new environment, and face existential and artistic challenges. It can be said that by choosing a fluid conceptual strategy,
Sadko Hadžihasanović established himself in the new environment, continued creating without interruption, secured gallery representation, and carefully sustained his presence on the regional art scene of his primary homeland. Over the past two decades, the artist held several solo exhibitions in Belgrade; the new exhibition at the Graphic Collective Gallery represents a continuation of the refinement of the poetic discourse of his intricate autopoetic structures. Through the self-ironic title The Best of Sadko, borrowed from his 2005 Belgrade exhibition, this contemporary nomad has managed, despite everything, to preserve his own artistic hedonism.
Notable is the artist’s concept of claiming creative freedom through the use of recycled materials—decorative elements, patterns from industrially printed wallpapers, or printed canvas, often with figurative or floral motifs—integrated into the work itself, where, depending on the artistic content, these seemingly unfinished pieces remain open to new readings.
In recent years, Hadžihasanović has directed his artistic energy toward research in printmaking and digital media; small copper plates serve as matrices for printmaking and for drawing/painting, while in digital media frames of everyday life’s harsh reality are read through hundreds of hand-drawn
animations.

Themes of identity, memory, and migration, in synergy with social criticism, dark humour, and the immigrant experience, are expressed in drawings, paintings, collages, prints, assemblages, and video works that are exhibited at the Graphic Collective Gallery. He was an active member of the art group Zvono in Sarajevo during the 1980s, contributing to
refinement of the group’s ideas, which, while fostering collective creativity, sought respect for individuality. His spiritual brotherhood with Zvono aligns closely with the idea of equating art with everyday life, from which his work stems and to which it returns at various phases.