Milena Pavlovic Barilli and her work were an inspiration for many artists and soon after the opening, in the autumn of 1962, the Gallery organized an art event „Dream and Imagination“, gathering great names of Serbian and Yugoslav art, including the members of „Mediala“. Thus, parallel to Milena’s opus, a collection of modern art was born. The festival „Dream and Imagination“ brought together such great names as: Vladimir Velicković, Ljuba Popovic, Leonid Sejka, Branko Miljus, Milic od Macve, Vasilije Jordan, Miodrag Nagorni, Milan Popovic, Marko Sustarcic, Spase Kunoski and Svetozar Samurovic.
„Dream and Imagination“, in turn, inspired the organization of the first Biennial „Milena Pavlovic Barilli“ in Pozarevac in 1983. Like that first time, and since then every second year, it opens on the day of Milena’s birthday, November 5th. Since the second Biennial in 1985 it has been known as „In the light of Milena“, a phrase coined by a Pozarevac journalist Jovan Rajkovic.
Biennial became international in 1997 and continues to be so, with the participation of artists who work outside the borders of Serbia.
The challenge to illuminate the trace of Milena’s work in time has been taken up, during more than three decades, by a great number of artists.
The Biennial issues official awards of a prestigious level as judged by an expert panel of judges, as well as the plaques with Milena’s portrait, designed by a sculptor Nebojša Mitric, who also did and donated two busts of Milena. One of them is in the Gallery, and the other one is in the Sunčani park area in front of the Cultural Centre in Požarevac-
The art collection of the Modern Art of the Milena Pavlovic Barilli Gallery contains 53 works - 36 oils, 12 prints, aquarelles and drawings and 5 sculptures. They were created between 1959 and 2015. The basis of the collection is made up of paintings imbued with surrealism, from the domain of the metaphysical art of the hyperrealism to the Gothic fantasy, but there are also those reaching into the radical geometrism. Artists represented in the art collection of the Modern Art of the Milena Pavlovic Barilli Gallery represent the art scene of the second half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century.
The day of Milena’s birth, November the 5th, the day of the Biennial, is an important day for art. On that day other artists with their works pay respect to her magical talent.