Organized by the Podgorica Secretariat for Culture and Sports, in April of this year, an exhibition of recent works by the prominent Montenegrin artist Srđan Vukčević (Titograd, 1959) was organized in Podgorica.
Vukčević graduated (1983) from the Belgrade Faculty of Fine Arts in the class of prof. Stojan Čelić, and in 1986 he completed his master's studies in the class of prof. Mirjana Mihać. As a scholarship holder of the Dutch Government, he trained (1986/1987) at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam, and then as a scholarship holder of the French Government he continued his specialization (1989) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris under Prof. Vladimir Veličković.
Near the hotel "Podgorica", above the mouth of Ribnica in Morač, under a large white umbrella, Vukčević presented to the public thirty-eight works, thirty of which were replicas made with oil and combined techniques on canvas, paper and textiles, and eight spatial objects and assemblages, called "Hypnosovo jezero", and all the works were created in the last three years.
Obviously, conceptually, Vukčević wanted to present his latest creations in a very unusual spatial environment and at a specific location point. In the center of the event, a bust sculpture of Hypnos made of pressed paper mass, with a seagull with spread wings on its shoulder, is anchored. According to Greek mythology, Hypnos personifies sleep, he was depicted as a beautiful young man with a naked body with wings on his head, and his descendants are the Oniri, entities that appear during sleep.
Around that central attribute and the head-mounted image of the "Guardian of the Umbrella-King of Persia", on mobile panels and in accompanying niches, a meaningful concept setting is displayed. For a long time now, Vukčević has conceived each of his new explications as a designed whole, and bases it on a mythic-legendary skaska, or a historical figure. In fact, there is a permanent literary fable, or enigmatic telling, in the weave.
And almost as a rule, these inspired and complex wholes are accompanied by several segmental substrates, from flat-pictorial, through pictorial-spatial to spatial-sculptural. Vukčević's unusual conceptual setting is meaningful and disjointed, it acts like a stage setting, in which some kind of oneiric play takes place. When the elements of that mythologized ritual are analyzed more carefully, several characteristic contents can be observed.
The first segment includes about fifteen works that were created using the oil technique on prepared canvas, paper or textile, which are classically equipped, and thematically related to still life, landscape, portrait and figure. These works were realized with Vukčević's distinctive painting discourse, in a loose color scale, with smoothly underpainted background parts and rustic-gestural overtones in the center.
In that work, the characteristic paintings are: "On the shore", "Apples", "Window", "Scented morning", "Big vase and apples", "Boy with a dog". The next painting segment includes a dozen romanticized works, which are thematically related to Mediterranean fruits, birds, flowers, leaves, vases, baskets, and which were created with an innovative and subtle art process, on specially treated semi-cardboard, with the additional incorporation of various substances.
All these inspired replicas are interestingly presented, in box-glazed equipment, with museological characteristics. The works from that segment, in a certain way, romanticize, poeticize and refresh the overall archaized-mystical exhibition setting, and are characteristic: "A Conversation with Three", "The Orange and the Little Gondolier", "The Pink Bird", "The Bird in the Wind".
Certainly, it should be emphasized that Vukčević, even with this latest explanation, has certainly confirmed the high level of artistry he has reached in contemporary Montenegrin art.
Changing the primary property and creating a new meaning
The third global segment includes several simply retro-three-dimensional exhibits, which are assemblage substituted in the composition of various antique pieces, collected in antique shops.
My mystical-romantic thematic jump, builds on additionally archaic-authentic attribution, prams, doll, fox mink, sailor uniform, with shoes, gloves, and a scarf.
In that segment, Vukčević uses a kind of collage procedure, an assemblage of rejected objects, he changes the primary property and establishes a new semantic concept.
Bonus video:
