EXHIBITION: TOMAŽ PANDUR / SEEKING AND DEFINING BEAUTY

OPENING: 12/04/2026, 11.00

Authors of the exhibition: Livija Pandur, Tanja Lužar (Drama SNG Maribor), Živa Kleindienst (UGM)
Coordination: Sarita Zupanc.

“Art is the search for and definition of beauty. It is the essence of our being and existence.”
– Tomaž Pandur

On the tenth anniversary of the passing of theatre director Tomaž Pandur, Drama SNG Maribor and Maribor Theatre Festival, in collaboration with UGM | Maribor Art Gallery, will honour this singular theatre visionary with a richly varied programme.

The exhibition Seeking and Defining Beauty at UGM Kabinet presents six theatre productions by Tomaž Pandur through the medium of theatre photography and other archival material from the period of his artistic leadership of Drama at the Slovene National Theatre Maribor (1989–1996). The exhibition is built around black-and-white photography of Angelo Božec, which stand as compelling testimony to Pandur’s creative vision, his boundless passion for creating new worlds, and a poetic language uniquely his own, to which he remained faithful until the end of his creative journey. The plays that Pandur staged at the Drama SNG Maribor over a period of seven years pushed the boundaries of theatre, provoking excitement and controversy. Faust (1990), Hamlet (1990), Carmen (1992), La divina commedia: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso (1993), Russian Mission (1994) and Babylon (1996) are productions that have left a profound mark on the theatre of Maribor and Slovenia, placing it on the world theatre map.
Even as a young director, Pandur demonstrated an indisputable mastery of the extraordinary power of visual symbolic language, using it to transform classical texts into bold and evocative stage worlds with innovative scenographic concepts that irresistibly drew audiences from around the globe.

The exhibition will be on view at Drama SNG Maribor during the Maribor Theatre Festival (8–21 June 2026). Accompanying the exhibition, a round table discussion The Influence of Pandur’s Aesthetics on the Development of Slovenian Theatre Expression will take place as part of Maribor Theatre Festival. The series of events paying tribute to the prematurely deceased director will be complemented by a staging of Immaculata, based on Colm Tóibín’s novel The Testament of Mary, adapted by Tomaž Pandur and dramaturge Livija Pandur.

Tomaž Pandur (b. 1963, Maribor, d. 2016, Skopje) founded the theatre group The Thespian Cart while still a student at Prva gimnazija Maribor, immediately drawing attention with its first productions. He studied theatre directing at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film, and Television in Ljubljana, where he received the Prešeren Student Award for directing his graduation performance of Mary Stuart. He directed his first professional, now cult performance, Scheherazade, in 1989 at the Slovenian Youth Theatre. In the same year, he took over the artistic direction of the Drama SNG Maribor, which he led for seven years, during which time he made his mark on the world stage with his own productions and those of other directors. After leaving Maribor, he moved to New York, tried his hand at film, and continued his theatre work in Germany, Spain, Serbia, and Croatia. Together with his sister, dramaturge Livija Pandur, he founded the Pandur.Theaters in 2002. He did not limit himself to directing plays, but also worked in opera and ballet. His works include Dictionary of the Khazars, Onehundred Minutes, Inferno, Tesla Electric Company, Barocco, and The Damned. In co-production with the Croatian National Theatre Zagreb, the European Capital of Culture, and Pandur.Theaters, he staged Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and at the Croatian National Theatre Zagreb, he also created Medea and Michelangelo. He returned to the Slovenian theatre scene in 2014 and directed the drama diptych Richard III + II at the Drama SNG Ljubljana, followed by Faust a year later. He returned to the Drama SNG Maribor in September 2016, posthumously, as the project he had initially begun – the production of Immaculata – was completed by dramaturge Livija Pandur. Tomaž Pandur died on 12 April 2016, during rehearsals for the play King Lear at the Macedonian National Theatre in Skopje.