16 May 2008 | Various cities throughout the Balkans are joining the international Night of the Museums event, which will take place around the world on the evening of May 17.

The museums in 23 towns in Serbia, Skopjie in Macedonia and Bucharest and Cluj in Romania will stay open late into the night, offering their residents and visitors nocturnal tours through permanent and special exhibitions, light shows, theatrical and music performances.

In Serbia, more than 130 museums and galleries will stay open in 23 towns, including the capital Belgrade, Novi Sad , Valjevo, Šabac, Pančevo, Niš, Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Zrenjanin, Sombor, Kikinda, Jagodina, Sirogojno, Požarevac, Subotica, Čačak, Vrbas, Kladovo, Zaječar, Vršac, Aleksinac, Vranje and Užice.

One of the planned events in Serbia that BalkanTravellers.com found out about will be internationally-renowned artist Maria Dubin’s “live” painting at the Museum of Natural History in Kalemegdan in Belgrade. Sponsored by property consultants Colliers International Serbia, Dubin will paint three artworks – capturing her impression of the museum’s exhibits, which will then be exhibited Museum on Saturday night. The artist will be working in a tent that the general public will be able to visit.

In Macedonia’s capital Skopje, two original paintings by Pablo Picasso will be displayed at the city’s Museum of Contemporary Arts. The two artworks include “Head of a Woman,” which the artist himself donated in 1964, after the Skopje earthquake and “Dance of Satires,” which is the property of an anonymous Macedonian collector.

In Romania, the cities of Bucharest and Cluj will participate in the Night of the Museums. In the capital, according to National Network of Romanian Museums website, well-known artworks of the National Art Gallery and the European Art Gallery are to be (re)discovered in a new context, with lights, music and video.

At the Art Collections Museum in Bucharest, artworks from broad fields – painting, graphics, applied art – and cultural spaces (from the Western world to the Far East) within its 15 collections will be available for viewing. There will be a light show in the Honor Court of the Royal Palace and various theatre and music performances, including a classical music and operetta mini-concert at the Little Museum Opera.

The Art Museum in Cluj will open its doors to visitors with an exhibition by artists, including Theodor Aman, Nicolae Grigorescu, Ion Andreescu, Ştefan Luchian, Theodor Pallady, Nicolae Tonitza, Gheorghe Petraşcu, Hans Mattis Teutsch.

Bulgaria’s capital Sofia also joins in the Night of the Museums. BalkanTravellers.com highlighted earlier this week some of the planned events for the evening of May 17.

The Night of Museums, conceived to be a free for all social event, was created in 2005 by the French Ministry for Culture. According to event’s official website, in 2007, it brought an estimated 1.3 million visitors to 956 museums in France and 960 museums in 41 other European countries.

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