As part of the art program of the winter scene of the Bar Chronicle, an exhibition of the Montenegrin painter Ibrahim Kurpejović was opened in the Castle of King Nikola in Bar.
At the opening of the exhibition, the author and visitors were greeted by drama artist Slobodan Marunović, who then recited the verses, and the selection of the Festival's art program, Anastazija Miranović, an art historian, opened the exhibition.
In the catalog of the exhibition, she wrote that Kurpejović has a sovereign command over color, which is the basic building-narrative element that "connotes a form, reduced to a sign, symbol, message, by the reduction of the representational." Those authentic mnemonic records of the colors of the flaming north, according to Miranović, "contextualize meaning and a completely defining lexicon, close to the smell of the land from which they originate", opening a universal discourse of the essence of art and life.
"Surface, multi-planar, collage painting, with short, sharp or broad stroke, is the artist's choice and way of executive articulation of the physicality of the image, but more significant and more substantial is Kurpejović's approach to thinking about the inner appearance, its translation into the symbolic, into the ineractive ductus that transposes the sensory into the mental, and the banal into the philosophical-aesthetic," Miranović added at the opening.
Kurpejović, who presented 24 works on this occasion, said that he was honored and pleased to be a guest of "this important cultural manifestation, I will not say only in Bar, but in Montenegro".
"The chronicle really deserves a wider understanding. I follow the art scene of Montenegro and I see that Bar takes serious care of art creation. It seems to me that, especially in the last two or three years, it is at a really high level. The audience, I notice, is extremely artistic present and well-known in art. So I am extremely glad that I was selected as a participant in the Yearbook," said Kurpejović after the opening.
About his work, in the exhibition catalog it is written that it is "self-portrait in its character", and that the painting is of lyrical - abstract provenance, harmonious compositional structures, bold rhythmic articulations of visual elements "where color is the protagonist of identity-integrated events".
Kurpejović was born in 1960 in Sređani, near Rožaj. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo in 1985, and his master's studies at the International University in Novi Pazar, where he is now a doctoral student. He has been a member of the Association of Fine Artists of Montenegro since 1987, and of the Sandžak Association of Fine Artists since 2003.
He is one of the initiators of organizing the Art Club "Kula" in Rožaje in 1989, of which he is also the president, and he is the initiator of the September Art Salon, which has been organized 15 times so far. Kurpejović has had 17 solo exhibitions and over 100 collective exhibitions in the country and abroad. He is a participant in several international painting colonies and laureate of several awards for painting, among which are the first prize at the competition "Youth Creativity on the Theme of NOB and the Socialist Revolution" in 1985 in Sarajevo; the second award for the conceptual design of the emblem and coat of arms of Rožaj, the redemption award of the French city of Beton in 2002, the first award "Pivo Karamatijević" for painting in 2004, of the Inter-Republican Community for Cultural and Educational Activities from Pljevlja.
Bonus video:
