Iron

The whole country breaks down over the budget, or about Milo's - "Effendi, you are not imprisoned" - political forecasts. For days, a major film director in Serbia, Goran Markovic, is surviving the bazaar-political "warm rabbit". Vucic's ministers, with the persuasiveness of lead soldiers, repeat inhuman insults against Marković. "Already seen". And you can see that they are competing, they are really trying, I guess that's how you win the favor of a leader... Well done, here's a reward cookie.

In addition to all that, that overabundance, that endless festival of foolishness, some news almost goes unacceptably short. And too tired.

These days we read that he died Nikola Gvozdenović Gvozdo, certainly one of the most popular and recognizable Montenegrin painters of our time. A colorful personality in many ways.

One by one, the entire generation of Montenegrin artists who, in the fifties of the last century, led Montenegro out of provincial gloom and mental darkness, is leaving. Numerous painters, writers, film and theater authors of that generation were crucial in the constitution of Montenegrin modernity. And that should be remembered. Especially when you live in a time that shows clear signs of senility and indifference: it forgets more and more, even what should not be forgotten at any cost.

I also have one extremely personal, very early memory of Gvozd. My brother and I were maybe four or five years old. The father was under some political suspicion at the time, and one day his friend, a painter, appeared at the door with - two loaves of bread in his hands. His father asked him in confusion - Iron, what do you need that bread for? "I brought these children, and with a father like this they must starve..." Of course, my brother and I didn't realize at the time that we were witnessing the birth of a typical Hvozd anecdote, but for the rest of our lives we remembered a charming, talkative man with two loaves of bread in his hands.

And there are the unforgettable Gvozd landscapes, those moldy and damp scenes... Wonderful goats, an unequivocal Mediterranean sign. As for writers who are said to write one book all their life, so it could be said of him that he made one picture all his life. A big picture of a world that has disappeared, sunk, which is as fragile and elusive as human memories.

And, perhaps most importantly and most worthy: Gvozdo was an exceptional pedagogue. One of the favorite professors. Who, no matter how much it was "in his own way", knew how to tell the students the right things.

His students, and a good number of them are an important part of the art scene today, speak of him with the greatest possible respect. The best proof of his teaching skills - none of them look like him in painting.

And, above all, an endlessly funny man.

I remember one of his stories, I heard it at the opening of the Iron Student exhibition, Vladimir Đuranović in Herceg Novi, more than fifteen years ago.

Gvozdo's story about the early XNUMXs and the then airline line to capital Belgrade. Every day passengers were mainly fighters, heroes, "leaders" and politicians (at that time: socio-political workers) who went to various meetings of federal bodies and the like... Such a composition was, among other things, because the ticket was, at that time, everyone's pocket, quite expensive. When one of the local politicians saw the young artist on the plane with them, he immediately started making fun of him. Back then, it was considered quite normal for politicians to screw artists. (Is it mostly different today?) He didn't know where he was. "Iron, isn't your ticket expensive, you young artists are whining that you have nothing to live on", said the politician, while the plane was getting ready for take-off, and the passengers were putting on their seat belts. When he heard that, Gvozdo answered him, as if from a cannon - "I would pay twice as much, just to see the entire Montenegrin leadership tied up..."

The politician fell silent. It's always nice when an artist silences a politician. I don't believe that many of those present laughed, but certainly, everyone remembered Gvozd's answer.