Work
Zjale
I am drawn to the mystery of the pattern of traditional Serbian rugs, its forgotten meaning. The fact is that, if we look at old specimens of traditional rugs, there is a certain order – the layout of colors, repetition and variations in the relations of the characters (motifs), tell me that there is a described event, ritual, probably a story. All the above mentioned is necessary to make a story: repetition (reciprocity) shows temporality, variations to the development of events, spatial positioning of a certain motif, perhaps, to a different place of action, or more probably, to the importance of a certain happening for the story. In a similar way a child’s drawing is structured, where more important elements are larger and above others, or the position of frescos with biblical stories shown on the walls inside orthodox monasteries. Unfortunately, we lack the meaning that en(dis)ables the understanding of the content. Interpretation was definitely changing in time in space, as it was shown in Sreten Petrović’s theory on the revival of the old faith in new conditions.
I am afraid that the meaning of those stories included in the folk pattern is perhaps lost forever. That leads to the conclusion that my current occupation with art is an internal effort to, using words – motifs from traditional rugs, visual language of the ancestors, with meaning unknown to me, tell a story which meaning I don’t understand myself to try to revive the lost connections. These paintings are non-verbal stories, fairytales of the lost sense of our ancestors who found a way to overcome the time and once more mumble the lullaby in our modern ear.
My fine art expression is conditioned by the structure of the own inner content. I accept the fact that there are clusters of joint concepts of different origins which are mutually, analogously connectable. In my opinion a character of a person and personal affinities isolate and connect concepts of different areas in their own way, creating that apart from archetypally strong pictures, each person has his/her personal and unrepetitive cluster of important tastes, smells, stimuli, melodies, pictures, stories, adventures which are more important than the others and in which one recognizes something in common.
Because of that, in my paintings I work with a system of graphic motifs, created in advance, that has a neutral relationship towards the concepts, and equal incompatibility with any one of them. The choice of traditional motif as the bearing syllable of visual sentences I imply to my own inner and non-verbal mythology which has its roots in the rich heritage of our ancestors.
Form and Abandon (2018)
Form and Abandon is set within an other-worldly architectural complex where a group of impassive characters enact a series of enigmatic rituals. It can be seen as a universal myth stripped to its core elements as well as the psychological interplay of known archetypes.
The apathetic acting implies that the actors represent principles instead of personalities.
While the processes and symbols presented are partly rooted in the Serbian mythology and tradition, each of the personas play archetypical roles that chart universal cycles of progression, regression, fusion and rupture.
At once futuristic and archaic, the video stages fundamental interactions between visual elements to demonstrate essential principles that transcend time and space.
Form and Abandon is filmed at Kadinjača, Serbia, a monumental complex raised by the socialistic Yugoslavian government in memoriam of fallen defenders of the region from the incoming Nazi-German troops. However, this video transcends this specific narrative and refers to repetitive cycles of life which, by its nature, involve the destruction. The destruction is an evolutionary stage of existence, as viewed by the co-creators of the project Pavle and Anuk Jovović.
“Form and Abandon” is the result of young German and Serbian artists (cast and crew) working together.
Bare / In spite of
BARE is the title that I chose for this series of paintings, for they represent what I personally consider the most valuable in a creative approach. Free from the present image of what a contemporary art piece should look or feel like, or what message and moral it should stand behind. “Bare” means stripped of the contemporary dogma, of popular subject-matter choices and that part of an artist’s ego that demands to be liked or accepted through art.
When I work, I look away from the traps of political provocation or present-day “important” life subjects, because even though they are important for functioning in a modern day society, these political structures and life situations come and go as the ones before.
I firstly wanted to name this series “FUCKYOU paintings”,to express the anger triggered, in my case, by the everyday feeling of unease provoked by the media input of what life or art should look like. The difficulty is that art demands both, independency and socialization and when I create, I’m only inert to, but not revolting against, expectations of the art society or life clichés.
Then I realized: “To whom am I showing my middle finger?” My art isn’t wasted on my anger towards the ugly sides of our society or myself. It is about showing that IN SPITE OF the oppression, these temporary manipulative constructs can be ignored. And then what we are left with, is us.
Pavle Jovović
Artist statement
The structure of my psyche dictates personal affinities that give birth to my artistic expression. The nature of painting coincides with my ideas. Both go in the direction of pealing the perception-presentation layers until I get to the ones that “hold water”. I guess growing up between ugly, unfinished facades made an impact on my perception of what is important.
My painting has the aesthetics of a buildings construction site. It’s in the stage where it’s shown how bricks and bars hold the wall before it’s made beautiful. My painting can only be good if I don’t care about how presentable it looks. When it holds the wall, it’s good enough. If I ‘had to’ make a painting look one way or another, I would lose the interest for this activity. I don’t impose a subject or a theme to research. Concepts emerge spontaneously from their material representatives. At the same time concepts are their unconscious precursors. This is far away from saying: “Feel free to interpret my work as you wish.” It means that I try to use the full potential of my psyche while creating.
In the first phase my painting is mostly guided by intuition. I am merely allowing, helping the inner content find its appropriate form. It is a fairly long way from that stage until I rationally narrow it down, sharpen the concept into a spear point of rational meaning. Working on a canvas, intuition slowly makes place for thinking and buds of rational associations pop up.
Gardens of Self
My paintings are made by using by-products of abstraction.
Pavle Jovović
The shown works present combinations of different types of painting expressions. The painting is an object which is created by the means of self-expression. It is the cause of summing up various dispersed expressive potentials of the artist. The process of summing up is led by the attempt to emerge from the ‘cage’ of the previously learned and demonstrate a constantly ‘elusive self’. It is followed by outgrowing and turning inwards. The self, on the other hand, through every methodical mechanism applied to the canvas, proves to be an excess which recreates the painting. The methodical mechanism in this way comes into being as an answer to the ‘elusive self’.
The production process of these paintings can be seen as entering the so-called “gardens of manouche”1. Namely, if we take two symmetrical geometrical objects in blue and red which are then consciously visually manipulated, they give the illusion of a third, objectively inexistent geometrical form which derives from the area of the psyche, we enter the so-called “gardens of manouche”. By repeating this ‘experience’, our impression of a new geometrical structure which connects these two given forms is intensified. This is where the analogy with the optical game of entering the “gardens of manouche” comes in.
These analogies can also be found on different levels. The geometrical shapes which form the “gardens of manouche” comprise a structural infrastructure of complex motives shown on the paintings of the young author. He balances between the refined ‘void’ and the fear of confronting a quality of the void which we can denote as ‘nothing’. Confronted with the whiteness of the canvas, the artist compulsively instigates a method with the aim of controlling the outcome of a once infinite and intrinsic number of potentials. The painting here brings together the undetachable surplus and a methodical mechanism.
To sum it up, the expressive potential of painting represents a building block formed by a compulsive premeditation. It is a reaction to the blank white surface (the infinite potential of personal content) and the constantly elusive ‘self’ (the personal). The painting is subsequently realised only when the denoted white surface comes into contact with the paint which has the role of its ‘filler’.
The specificity of Pavle’s painting is in seeing it as an object which unifies those varied potentials of expression that it innately carries.
Sequences of expression construct the paintings and lead to the following formula:
Painting=object=expression.
The process of synthesis (unification) is constant.
Velimir Popović
Translation to English: Isidora Krstić
1 An experiment in perception psychology. As seen in: “Laws of Faith”, by Rüdiger Dahlke
Zjale
I am drawn to the mystery of the pattern of traditional Serbian rugs, its forgotten meaning. The fact is that, if we look at old specimens of traditional rugs, there is a certain order – the layout of colors, repetition and variations in the relations of the characters (motifs), tell me that there is a described event, ritual, probably a story. All the above mentioned is necessary to make a story: repetition (reciprocity) shows temporality, variations to the development of events, spatial positioning of a certain motif, perhaps, to a different place of action, or more probably, to the importance of a certain happening for the story. In a similar way a child’s drawing is structured, where more important elements are larger and above others, or the position of frescos with biblical stories shown on the walls inside orthodox monasteries. Unfortunately, we lack the meaning that en(dis)ables the understanding of the content. Interpretation was definitely changing in time in space, as it was shown in Sreten Petrović’s theory on the revival of the old faith in new conditions.
I am afraid that the meaning of those stories included in the folk pattern is perhaps lost forever. That leads to the conclusion that my current occupation with art is an internal effort to, using words – motifs from traditional rugs, visual language of the ancestors, with meaning unknown to me, tell a story which meaning I don’t understand myself to try to revive the lost connections. These paintings are non-verbal stories, fairytales of the lost sense of our ancestors who found a way to overcome the time and once more mumble the lullaby in our modern ear.
My fine art expression is conditioned by the structure of the own inner content. I accept the fact that there are clusters of joint concepts of different origins which are mutually, analogously connectable. In my opinion a character of a person and personal affinities isolate and connect concepts of different areas in their own way, creating that apart from archetypally strong pictures, each person has his/her personal and unrepetitive cluster of important tastes, smells, stimuli, melodies, pictures, stories, adventures which are more important than the others and in which one recognizes something in common.
Because of that, in my paintings I work with a system of graphic motifs, created in advance, that has a neutral relationship towards the concepts, and equal incompatibility with any one of them. The choice of traditional motif as the bearing syllable of visual sentences I imply to my own inner and non-verbal mythology which has its roots in the rich heritage of our ancestors.