Tonight, the opening of the exhibition "Blind Travelers" by Goran Ćetković: Prisoners of fate and existential hopelessness

The opening of the exhibition in the "Josip Bepo Benković" gallery is scheduled for 19:XNUMX

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Goran Ćetković, Photo: Private archive
Goran Ćetković, Photo: Private archive
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

Blind travelers travel through space and time, bringing a strong message to this crazy world, to call to mind...

So academic painter Goran Ćetković answers the question: "Who are the Blind Travelers and where are they going?"... After numerous cities and galleries, Ćetković's "Blind Travelers" will visit Herceg Novi, where the exhibition will open on Thursday, May 30, in the gallery "Josip Bepo Benković ", at 19 p.m.

Ćetković will present himself to the art audience in Herceg Novi with 30 paintings from this popular cycle that has been created for the past few years, and which has become recognizable and attractive in a short time, which further distinguished Ćetković on the Montenegrin art scene. In this cycle, motifs of man in the form of portraits and figures dominate Ćetković.

"From the very beginning, blind travelers are a symbol of a time in which they were created and, by the nature of things, the main heroes are prisoners of their fate, those who have nothing in this world but their lives," said Ćetković.

The paintings from the series "Blind Travelers" mainly talk about the alienation of modern man, as well as the transience of life. The dance of motifs such as birth and death is evident, and the expressions on the faces of the "Traveller" seem to represent what is in between - lived and survived, various emotions and various psychological states.

"They are the image and opportunity of today's man, lost and entangled in existential hopelessness. However, Blind Travelers have transformed and significantly strengthened themselves over time and now, through their latest works, they manifest some other states, which also promote some other life values. It is a new world that is characterized by exceptional dynamics, expressiveness with elements of fantasy", said Ćetković to Vijesta.

The mystique of human existence and life on Earth since people have been on it continuously leads to numerous questions, and some of the eternal ones remain those that concern ourselves and our function - who we are, what we are, where we are going, it is a matter of life and death, but and that time in between - the interim. That in-between time is reserved for finding one's own expression in a one-time life that repeats itself over and over again... All of this is reflected in the "Blind Travelers" who, each in their own way, are at the same time lost or lost, but also leaders and examples for future travelers. ...

It seems that with his works, the artist, listening to the "Blind Travelers" and spreading their instructions further, tries to find answers to those questions about man, his existence, human states of mind and spirit, but also the new age and all opportunities and adjustments, abandonment and absence... Gesture, expression, contrasts, dynamics create dramaturgy, but also the story on Ćetković's canvases. His works offer a number of possibilities for different interpretations, because it may be that final answers do not exist, but play (in) cosmic paths, always on the edge of the abstract, avant-garde, unreal, surreal...

Eminent Montenegrin artist Dimitrije Popović in the accompanying catalog of the exhibition, he wrote that Goran Ćetković is a painter who bases his expression on "permeating the power of expressive gesture and refined color, whose dynamic unity with chiaroscuro effects and glazes as well as surface structures create the coherence of the artistically aesthetic whole of the work".

One of the works from the series 'Blind travelers'
One of the works from the series "Blind Passengers"photo: Private archive

"It should be emphasized the characteristically vibrant permeation of the virtuosically applied almost abstract elements of coloristic spots and strokes and their suggestive associations, i.e. concretization into the figurative, on the human face and body. In the pluralism of the contemporary art scene, the works of Goran Ćetković show how the feeling of the world and time can be expressed through the classical medium of painting and also how confidence in painting is returning, which is proof both here and in the world that the classical medium of painting remains as a permanent and vital possibility of artistic expression. , Popović pointed out.

Ćetković's works from this cycle seem to walk into the unknown as they emerge from the universal, general place of today, which causes the observer, the everyday man, to sigh, cry, scream, the need to move, to travel, the need to change himself and his environment in the desire to (o )rules the situation and (in)sees the right path to oneself, to one's own soul, but also the path beyond loneliness, to a better society and world...

Popović added that the painting of this artist is dominated by exceptional expressiveness of creative expression, which is equally reflected in the painting of the human face and body, and he also referred to the names of the works in particular.

"Everything is given in such a way that in the dynamic movement of the painted matter created from the transformed conventional anatomy of the human body, an impression is created of the energizing energy which, paradoxically speaking, simultaneously cancels and confirms. Such an impression is suggested by the names that the artist gives to his works. From 'Creation of the World', 'Nausea', 'Transience' to 'Noah's Ark' or 'Phoenix'. Everything exists in order to disappear and be renewed again with the vitality of energy into a recognizable anthropomorphic form. In that painter's panopticon of human drama, the entire gallery of 'portraits' stands out, those unusual heads that are most often depicted as decapitated from the body in order to independently live their own nothingness," Popović pointed out.

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