Visit to Cetinje

Today I visited the Montenegrin Art Gallery in Cetinje with my colleague, a practicing artist, Mirjana Maresenic Vujovic (she was mentioned in a previous post). What was interesting to me was that although I could not recognize a single artist's name in the gallery, I could recognize the art movements that had influenced their work. As Montenegro has always been tiny - in fact it used to be a lot smaller than its current size - many aspiring artists would go to art institutes throughout Europe to get training. Artists were trained by well known European artists, such as Giacometti, Salvador Dali, and Cezanne.

Fig. 1. Miodrag Đurić. Untitled 1997.

Oil painting on linen.

One artist whose work consisted of drawing with paint, and whose work was particularly disturbing, was the work of Miodrag Đurić (1933–2010), also known as Dado. He was born in Cetinje, Montenegro (Yugoslavia) during a particularly troubled time in the history of this region. His mother died in 1944, where upon he went to live with his uncle, a painter, in "Ljubljana, Slovenia, a baroque city once in the Old Austro-Hungarian Empire." (Szidon, 2010) During his childhood he got to see the brutalities of war, observing bodies cut down in the streets of his home. He was also "deeply affected" by the suicide of his close friend, Bernard Requichot. (Szidon, 2010) These influences are evident in his works which glorify the grotesque, goulish and sinister subjects.

In many ways his work seems to show a similar repulsion to the confines of "beautiful" art, reflecting many of the sentiments of Surrealism and Dadaism. According to Montenegrin artist, Mirjana Maresenic Vujovic, he is considered as a Conceptual artist. His website indicates that he was anti establishment, helping to form an Anti Museum in Cetinje. Ironically, his enormous canvases inhabit a large portion of the Montenegrin Art Gallery, with a collection of some of the random objects he painted displayed on what was most likely a work surface of his. His images are brutalistic in their abstraction and distortion of the human figure. Grotesque monsters inhabit his enormous canvases, with gruesome guts and gore spilling from their innards. His work reminds me of the entrails and drippings we would see festooning Voudoun altars and religious sites in Benin. His images leave me wanting to know more about his psyche and the influences that impacted his use of imagery.

As Mirjana Maresenic Vujovic explained to my husband and I yesterday, true art is born out of a person's experiences and what truly moves them. It is disturbing to wonder at what horrors he saw in his lifetime that moved him to portray such violence and distortion in his artworks. What was interesting to me was how he could use a palette of predominantly pastel hues of baby blues and violets, and yet render them violent through his crowded, compositions and the gruesome depiction of disemboweled forms. In some ways I think this provided the shocking contradiction he was seeking.

What I do like about his artworks is the way he models forms and the draws on top of these molded forms to create dynamic movement.

Fig. 2. Miodrag Đurić. Guardians III, 2013. 

While researching about Miodrag Đurić I discovered the work of Croatian artist, Matko Vekic. As part of his exhibition Magnetic Burden of Time, 2011-2013 he created studies of dogs in oil and varnish on canvas at a large scale of  220 X 165 cm. (Vekic, 2014 - 2015) What I find appealing about these artworks is the way that he created so many layers of achromatic colors, with a contrast between the geometric designs in the background. These background shapes are a mimicry of shapes found within the dogs. For example, the dogs legs and paws when simplified form the shapes found on the tiles of the floor. Their ears are triangular in shape providing a visual link to the triangular shapes in the background. Like Miodrag Đurić he reworks linear detail on top of tonal regions. Once again, I wish I could see the real artworks, but what I can view online is quite inspirational. It gives me some ideas of how I can invigorate the surfaces of studies of bark.  

Fig. 3. Patrica Farrar

I stumbled across an artwork that I saved many years ago while teaching in Kazakhstan by Patrica Farrar. ( Fig. 3) This tree stump is well studied with many layers building up its surface. I particularly like the way in which she uses the dribbles of the ink to create organic lines of the branches. I also like the way she has combined shades of dark brown in the background with darker shades of brown and black forming the focus of the stumps root system. What is also effective is the contrast between thick and thin angular lines. The finer filigree of lines set off a contrast with the bolder paths of black ink which for the central areas of the root system. Unfortunately I cannot give this artist any further credit as I cannot find any further information about them on the internet.

I think what I appreciated the most about visiting the museum was how it served as a springboard for my exploration of related artists. It was also fascinating to see the artists who served to mold the foundations of Vujovic's artwork.

Illustrations

Figure 1. Đurić, M., 1997. Untitled 1997. [Art].

Figure 2. Vekic, M., 2011-2013. Guardians III. [Art].

Figure 3. Patrica Farrar. [Art].

Works Cited
Szidon, P., 2010. Dado - Biographical Time-line. [Online]
Available at: http://www.dado.virtual.museum
[Accessed 22 October 2016].

Vekic, M., 2014 - 2015. Matko Vekic - Jihad. [Online]
Available at: http://www.matko-vekic.com/cycle/2014-2015/
[Accessed 22 October 2016].

Wikipedia, 2016. Dado (painter). [Online]
Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dado_(painter)
[Accessed 21 October 2016].