The two seemingly incompatible topics, war and humour, will go “hand in hand” during the following month.

The exhibition “War and Humour 1914-1918“ was officially opened in Belgrade, in the exhibition hall of the National Library of Serbia, on 16th  November 2018 at 7 p.m.

Within the commemoration of the centenary of the Armistice that ended the First World War, the exhibition shows how the war and humour marked the media, advertising, and propaganda between 1914 and 1918. The official opening ceremony with a cocktail was attended by approximately 150 visitors from the field of culture, media, and advertising, including our youngest fellow citizens as well.

The author of the exhibition is Vladimir Čeh from the Institute of Advertising History, with co-authors Milan Ristović, Ph.D. Nataša Jovanović, Ph.D. Prvoslav Plavšić, and the team of the National Library, in cooperation with companies Alma Quattro, Beoexpo, and Digital Mind. The exhibition was also selflessly supported by the embassies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Austria, and Canada.

As a very effective tool that easily and quickly stirs up emotions, during the Great War humour was used in the communication with the population in all available media of that time: posters, postcards, magazines, newspapers (in printed editions and manuscripts).

The motto of the exhibition was Napoleon’s declaration made two hundred years ago: “The British caricaturist James Gillray did me more damage than all the armies of Europe”.

A special part of the exhibition consists of 42 original cartoons from the biennial International Antiwar Cartoon Salon “Kragujevac”.
This part is particularly interesting since the cartoons or caricatures have also been digitally turned into postcards, which has aroused great interest of visitors. The company Digital Mind has prepared a touchscreen display on which visitors can digitally select one of 42 cartoons as an illustration for a postcard, personalize it with a message, a drawing or a selfie, enter an address, and send it by touching a postage stamp. The next day the postcard starts its journey from the digital world to Gutenberg’s galaxy and arrives directly into the addressee’s mailbox.
Especially for the exhibition the Post of Serbia issued a commemorative postage stamp, which is on the reverse side of each printed postcard.

Jugoslav Vlahović created the heading of “War and Humour” newspaper issued for the first and the last time for the exhibition.

Alma Quattro as the “exhibition sponsor” will cover all the expenses for the production of all postcards, and visitors can order and send postcards free of charge. As an additional support, Alma Quattro will multiply the amount of said expenses and donate it for the project of creating a digital platform for the archiving of advertising campaigns.

The exhibition will be open from 16^th November to 16^th December 2018, and the entrance is free.

We invite you to visit the exhibition and send as many postcards as possible in memory of the First World War casualties.